Our History

We are actually a real family-owned and operated business right here in Indian Trail, NC. We have been doing custom embroidery since 1998 when I discovered that polyester thread was bleach-proof.

But there is obviously a story there. I was a chef… for a pretty long while, and one of the parts of the job I loved was going out into the dining room and meeting some of the guests. The problem is, kitchens are messy; that’s just a fact, and you can only hit the dining room in a true white (clean) chef’s coat. You also want to go out there in the one with your title/name and maybe a logo on it. The issue was just that: white and clean is easy with a bit of degreaser and some bleach in the wash, but then your logo would fade and pretty soon look like garbage. I knew there had to be a solution, I mean, we had the internet, right? So I started looking around and found an importer who carried this new German embroidery thread that was made of polyester instead of the much more common rayon. So I bought it and a home embroidery machine (the $1500 in 1998 was a BIG DEAL on a chef’s salary, so this had to work). It did. In fact, I ended up making not only my and all my friends’ new “bleach-proof” chef’s coats, but I also found some colorfast golf shirts with “color blocking”—you remember the look: collars and sleeves a different color than the body of the shirt. It was a late ’90s staple at all the fast-casual bars all over the country. I walked my butt into Apple-J, the local Applebee’s franchisee at the time, and explained what my embroidery could do for them, and I was in business…

Over the years, my culinary career did better than my cottage embroidery business, and I ended up with Marriott in a few hotels up and down the east coast, met my wife, had a daughter, and left the kitchens to move into tech… Basically grew up, but all along, I’ve kept my love for graphics and embroidery alive.

Back in 2018, we really started growing the small business into something more, buying a 12-needle machine for embroidery, a few new printers—wide format and sublimation—and most recently, a transfer printing machine for short-run t-shirt graphics. I know this is a long story, but it allows us to offer exceptional service for a price that usually means imports. If you have ever ordered from Etsy or some of the less known custom goods outlets, you know you usually have to buy a lot of items or pay ridiculous prices just to get an OK product. While we do offer deep discounts for clubs and organizations needing dozens of shirts and hats, etc., we offer discounts even on your second item… Just try it out: design a shirt in the design center and add a few into your cart… The discounts are applied at checkout (or if you refresh your page).

We are our current customers’ go-to company, and we hope to be yours as well.