%20Pearce%20Bespoke%20-%20Rameez%20Budhani.jpg)
Good Neighbor Podcast North Atlanta
Bringing Together Local Businesses & Neighbors of North Atlanta
Good Neighbor Podcast North Atlanta
EP #79: Pearce Bespoke with Rameez Budhani
Ever wondered how a custom suit can transform not just your wardrobe but also your confidence? Join us as we sit down with the charismatic Rameez Budhani from Pierce Bespoke, and we unravel the tale of two brothers whose family tailoring roots propelled them to begin cultivate a franchise that exemplifies both innovation and tradition. As we chat, you'll learn how they've stitched together a business model that promises quality without exorbitant prices, and why investing in a customized suit is more than a purchase—it's a statement of self-worth. Tune in for an engaging conversation that's sure to leave you inspired to make your next fashion choice a bespoke one with Pierce Bespoke.
This is the Good Neighbor podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Stacey Grizzly.
Speaker 2:Hello friends and neighbors, welcome to North Atlanta's Good Neighbor podcast. Today we're here with Ramiz Boudhani, with Pierce v Spoke. Hi, ramiz, how are you today?
Speaker 3:Hey, stacey, glad to be here. Good, how are you?
Speaker 2:I'm doing great. It's nice to have you on. We've been talking about doing this one for a little while now, so glad to get you on the show and let you tell our listeners about your business. And with that, we'll start with you telling our listeners about our business.
Speaker 3:Yeah awesome Again, really happy we could finally make this happen. So the company that we are my brother and I just started is called Pierce v Spoke. We've actually owned the franchisee for Atlanta here. So what Pierce v Spoke is what we're doing here is a custom mobile fashion bar for custom suits. So Pierce is actually the last name of the person that created the idea. He's based out of Louisiana, and what v Spoke stands for is pretty much made for you.
Speaker 3:So this is very, very customizable to your needs and it's a custom suit that it's like no other. So we're not talking about getting something off of the rack and tailoring it to your needs. We're going to that next level, and a big part of what we also do is provide customer service, which I feel like it's been a gap recently. So we are very customer focused. We're very customer centric. We want to get our customers what they need and we guarantee that perfect fit, and that's what Pierce v Spoke stands for. We're going to be there for you from start to finish. This is not a storefront or retail store. We're coming to you, we're taking your measurements. We're going to be there from start to finish. If it's your first suit, first custom suit, or your next custom suit. We're going to walk you through our style guides, our liners, our buttons, our fabrics, and we get you that suit that you're looking for for your next event.
Speaker 2:That's great and the audience that's listening. They don't know that we had a little pre-interview beforehand and I was Rami's and I were kind of joking back and forth about you can't go buy a suit off the rack and it looked good. I mean it's not, it looks. I said it looks like you're wearing your dad's suit. You know you're borrowing someone's suit. There is something really nice about a custom made suit. You know that's like and I like what you said that it's just that you buying a suit and then having it tailored. This is very, very different. This is, I mean. So I'm assuming that they get to you know, select the fabrics and, like you said, the buttons, the I mean all the details of that, of that state to fit their style.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, so we have we. So our major sellers are our sports jackets and our two piece and three piece suits. We do, you know, just pants or dress shirts as well, but our main focus you know, we don't like to open it up to having 40 or 50 different things we're very strategic in what we sell and what we provide to our clients, and we are we've perfected that right. So when someone calls us, emails us or finds us online, we are going to be there for you to make sure you're getting the perfect fit and the perfect suit, and that's that's our idea, right? We want them to feel comfortable, because it is. It is an, it is an investment in themselves to get something that's not, you know, you're not. It's not cheap to say right, but it's also. We're affordable compared to our competitors. But, either way, we want to make sure that when someone is purchasing a Pierce B spoke suit, it is everything that they are looking for in a suit.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Well, tell our listeners about your journey into this. You said that this is you and your brother's adventure, that y'all are doing this together, which I love. We love to promote family owned and operated businesses. I think that is awesome. So tell us about your journey. What made y'all decide to go down this path?
Speaker 3:Yes. So it's actually a little bit funny and kind of goes life as a full circle kind of moment here. But we moved here to the states from India in 2001. So when we moved here, you know, I did my high school, college, all that here and so did my brother, and then we kind of growing up.
Speaker 3:You know, our dad was always an entrepreneur. How does how does business? His dad passed away at an early age so he had to kind of step in and play that role as an entrepreneur and as a businessman. And in India he owned a pretty much a wholesale tailoring store so he would provide all the tailoring. In India, as you may know, tailoring is a big, big thing. Right, it's much cheaper to make your own shirt or your own garment there with the tailor rather than going to the store and picking anything off the rack. So that was the business model there.
Speaker 3:And then when we moved here, you know, after college I went into my kind of corporate world and I got into business. First I was in commercial finance and then I moved into business development and sales and then my brother kind of followed the entrepreneurial route and he opened up a restaurant actually in Alpharetta, and then, a couple of years after that, now he's starting to purchase subways and do some other restaurants here and around Sandy Springs and Decatur and Marietta. But recently, within the last few years, we started having the conversation of hey, you know, let's do something together.
Speaker 3:Right now it's enough time is pad, for both of us have found our little expertise to say right. So he's very operational minded and you know he's good with people, he's good with staff, he's good with, you know, handling the day to day stuff, whereas my expertise is more in business development and in sales and promotion and marketing, and that's what I graduated in marketing. So we started looking for things and let's. We said let's do something together. And that's when we found Nathan, who is the owner of Pierce B spoke. Nathan Pierce is his last name so we met him.
Speaker 3:My brother actually found him. We met him here in Atlanta, had a great conversation with him. He walked us through everything, walked us through what peers bespoke is and you know what, what he sells and what his idea and vision is right and really nice guy, really, you know, motivated. And so we sat down, me and my brother after that and you know we talked about it.
Speaker 3:After looking at a lot of different options, we ended up going with peers bespoke because it just, you know, jumped out to us and it just felt like, you know, we were both passionate about it and we want to make it's almost makes a smile every time we help somebody find that perfect fit because it just that confidence pops out of them. Right, and that's that was me when I got my first custom suit made and I was like this is night and day difference. So that's kind of the journey. And now we've built a team in Atlanta, so our office is based in Sandy Springs but we're completely mobile. So we built a team of folks, we've started to do events and we're really off to a great start here.
Speaker 3:So that's kind of the journey from start to finish.
Speaker 2:I love it and I love that it traces back to your dad's career and entrepreneurial spirit in India. That is really really neat. And then you're bringing that back here and your brother and you are carrying on something kind of and around about, like you said, full circle way that your dad started. So he's got to be super proud and that's exciting.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. He's very proud, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, so how about myths and misconceptions about your industry? Go ahead, and I'm sure there are plenty that I wouldn't even know to ask. So you just take the reins, rameez. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, I think the biggest thing that is a misconception is kind of that people get turned away when they hear a custom suit or something like. That is the price point. And it's like people say, ok, why would I buy one of these custom suits where I can get three or four from a local store off the rack? And that, I think, is the biggest thing, is that a custom suit is a big investment.
Speaker 3:I'm sure men that are listening to this right now there's going to be an event this year where they're going to be wearing a suit. So having that perfect fit for you when you know you're going to put this suit on it's going to fit you the way that it needs to fit you. It just adds that confidence. But it's the price point. We are very affordable compared to our competitors where we're giving them something that is just for them for a price that's not too outlandish. We want to make sure that we are giving especially these young professionals that are getting out and trying their first custom suit on. We don't want that custom work to draw them away and it's almost a myth that every custom suit it's going to be $3,000, $4,000. That's not what we're looking to do. We want to provide our customers with convenience and confidence, and that's what we're doing with Pierce Respawn.
Speaker 2:OK, so I may have just misunderstood this last part. You're saying that a custom suit with y'all is not $3,000 or $4,000?.
Speaker 3:No, so our range, yeah yeah. So I'll kind of go through that I was expecting that.
Speaker 2:When you said it's not $3,000 or $4,000, I was like, oh well, that's not quite as much of an investment as I would have thought, so you must be afforded yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, our price range. We have four different lines, so our range goes from $900 for an entry line to $2,000 is our most expensive suit, which is our George Carly collection. So that's our range, which is, again, compared to our competitors, very, very reasonable. You can spend $700, $800 just going to the Peruner Mall and buying something off the ride and getting a tailor to you. Rather, you're having somebody come to you. We're going to bring hundreds of fabrics, we're bringing the different buttons, we're bringing the style guide, and it's not just that hey point at what you like, it's explaining to you.
Speaker 3:It's the experience of buying your first custom suit, that what is a notch lapel versus a peak lapel? What are we talking about? A ticket pocket versus a slant pocket? What are these functional pockets that are on my sleeve? Understanding that, right, Understanding the true process of a custom suit and making something bespoke is very different than getting something off of the rack that just looks nice to you, right? So I think that's most important that we see our clients feel when we go to them. Is that 30 minutes is almost life changing for them. Is that I know this suit now, that I know every inch of this suit now, right? And I know that the shoulders need to drop a certain way. I know the sleeve needs to be a certain length right, and we also customize monograms inside the suits. Our liners are very customizable as well.
Speaker 2:So it's just a very good experience for our customers.
Speaker 2:It sounds it okay and all of those things that you mentioned. I don't know what any of them were the slant and the lapel so they're getting educated, especially for their first experience. But I had no idea that you could even get a custom made suit for $1,000. And you said ranges from 900 to 2,000. And that's way more affordable than I thought and from my perspective. Gentlemen, if you're listening, the different I mean you can, when you see someone in a suit that was literally designed and tailored and made for them, it's a game changer, for sure. And, hey, I hope you get lots of business because I like to see all these custom suits and that really is affordable. Well, so we're gonna shift gears for a minute and we'll get out of talking about business. But what are you doing, ramiz, for fun when you're not working?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that's a good question. I do a lot of things. So I live in Sandy Springs in Dunwoody and we've been here for about seven years now, me and my wife, and we really like to just explore, and food is a big part of that, so we definitely check out the new restaurants that are around here. So we love Supreka, grana, hobnab, that whole area. We love to go there just to kind of spend the day and just hang out on the weekend and outside of that I've started to run a lot recently. So I'm actually going to be doing my first half marathon at the end of February. So training for that has been a bit extreme. I'm not gonna lie that. I always looked at runners and I was like how hard could it?
Speaker 2:be Like really doing. I'm just kidding, I'll put the word discipline right Like it's an exciting journey.
Speaker 3:So I'm really enjoying that journey at the same time, but it's definitely difficult. So that's been my weekends, and also weeknights at some points, to just kind of get out there and keep training. It's really fun.
Speaker 2:There are a couple of different groups in Dunwoody and I know that you need it. I'll have to during the post interview. I will have to connect you with a couple of really good running groups and active Dunwoody there's a group, and there's I mean running clubs Like there's, and I know the people who run those. So I'm definitely gonna have to make an introduction for you for that Cause it's Dunwoody is a great place to run it, for that to be what you enjoy doing outside, a really good area for that. Well, and if you're, a foodie.
Speaker 3:I think, you're a good runner. Yeah, I'm looking for a new group to run with, for sure.
Speaker 2:Wonderful. I've got a couple for you and really great folks that are heading those up. But and you said that you enjoy food and that's a big part of you and your wife's adventures around and you live in the right place for that too. Yeah, Exactly. Just so much going in and so many great restaurants. I enjoy all the ones you just mentioned here in Ashford Lane, so it's a good spot to be.
Speaker 3:I will plug one more. So I don't know what the introduction is with Indian food and me and I know it's. I mean I'm from India, I was born there but I feel like I've been pretty American since, but I don't, and I and I feel like it's just something that takes me back, but they actually opened up a Indian restaurant called Heatherbot House, which is around the block here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can't get enough of it.
Speaker 3:So I had to find one, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's, it's. I can't. I'm gonna leave the name again, because I love Indian food.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's called Hedrabad House. Okay, so Hedrabad is actually the city I was actually born in as well, so that's funny. They're quite awesome, yeah, so it's really good it's meant to be.
Speaker 2:I'm freaking to love that so much. I will definitely be checking that out, so that sounds amazing. Well, so we're going to get a little more serious now. And is there a? We all have hardships and challenges through life, but is there one in particular that you have faced in life that you can say now, for having been through that experience and lived through that and gone through it, that you're stronger or better for that today? Is there anything like that you would like to share?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so actually there is.
Speaker 3:So I was actually diagnosed with a eye condition called retinitis pigmentosa, which is a genetic eye condition, and that's really been a big part of what my life has kind of become recently.
Speaker 3:I had to give up driving recently because of it, but it's pretty much deteriorates your vision as you get older and it starts with night vision blindness and then it gets into the daytime as well.
Speaker 3:So that's been really challenging, to say the least. But honestly, if it wasn't for my wife and my family and friends, that's been. The most important part of that is just having the people close to me, just kind of not just helping me sometimes with the day to day, but just being there emotionally, just being able to talk to them. And have a cousin that lives in Jersey and she's been very, very supportive of it as well, and just seeing that really gives me motivation and just to keep going. I'm a very motivated guy and I love to do things and I'm very passionate about certain things and having this come up has really taken me away from some of the things that I really used to love and do, but just having those conversations. Again, there's a chapter in Atlanta that helps with people that have the same condition, and talking to people there and just having that support has really been life changing.
Speaker 3:So it's been tough to start getting through it.
Speaker 2:That is a tough one for sure, and I am happy to hear you say that your family surrounding you. You're the kind of rise to the occasion to be there for you, to help lift you. When you're the emotional aspect of that, I can only imagine how challenging that is, but I'm really happy to hear that you have a great support network in place and that you will get through that and be stronger for it for sure. So thank you for being vulnerable and sharing that with us. I appreciate it. Well, we're really about to wrap up. Is there anything else, rami, that you would like our listeners to know about? Pierce Beespoke.
Speaker 3:No, nothing else other than what I cover. But I again really would love for folks to check us out, and we've been doing this for a while now. So if somebody's interested that's listening to this, if they have a wedding event or networking event or interview or anything going on, definitely reach out.
Speaker 2:I just thought of a question. So you were saying that having a networking event or a wedding or something coming up, what is the turnaround time From the time that they come to you and they, how much ahead of the wedding do they need to come?
Speaker 3:I am so happy you asked me that, because my brother would have killed me that I didn't cover. I'm glad you've been doing this for a long time and, yeah, that's a really good question. So it's a Three week turnaround. Time is what we have again compared to our competitors, which is roughly four to six weeks. We have a really good partnership with our production plant and they turn it around really fast. So it's about three, three, three to four weeks when we have the final suit to you.
Speaker 2:Okay, so a month just to make it safe, and that's about how long yeah, so any that's a.
Speaker 2:That was a great. I like that you just said if you have a wedding coming up, if you have, you know, a special event, I know it's, you know, not very Common. Well, most, most professions today. I don't require, you know, a custom-made suit, you know, but events and when you're wanting to, really, you know, look your best and Get ahead of the game, don't wait till the weekend before, especially, you know, and I would imagine to you like, as people's weight fluctuates and as their body changes, that they, you know, like it's time to maybe, maybe, revisit.
Speaker 2:Revisit that suit at least a month before your event. Make sure it's even still this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and we like to set expectations out front. Right, we're not. You know we're not gonna rush something. We know we're. When we see our clients, we're gonna say, hey, this is gonna take at least three or four weeks to get done If an event's happening next week is just not doable, right. So we want to make sure we're setting those expectations out front. We're talking about the price points, we're talking about all that stuff. But yeah, you're spot-on, right, you want to. You want to have that conversation prior to before the event.
Speaker 2:So yeah, right, okay, well, remise. What is the best way for our listeners to get in touch with you if they want to learn more?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you can find us online at peers bespoke dot com so you can go there and you know type in your zip code and you can find a local clotheer near you. Or you can Shoot me an email. I would definitely be able to get you with in contact with one of our clotheers who can.
Speaker 3:Set up an appointment with you to come take your free measurements and, you know, hopefully get you first in next Next suit. So my email is r a m E E Z, my first name, and then last initial be at peers bespoke dot com.
Speaker 2:So that's how you can reach me. It has been an absolute pleasure having you on. I'm so glad we finally got to do this and Uh and hope to see you real soon.
Speaker 3:Likewise, thank you so much, stacey. Have a good day.
Speaker 2:You are so well. That's all for today's episode, atlanta. I'm stacey risley with the good neighbor podcast. Thanks for listening and for supporting the local businesses and nonprofits of our great community.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the good neighbor podcast north Atlanta. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to g np north Atlanta dot com. That's g np north alana dot com, or call 470 946 670. 0 0 7.
