GR furniture company acquired by manufacturer Rapid Line

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — A Grand Rapids company that designs furniture for restaurants and other business has been acquired.

Studio Wise got its start in 2008, designing and building out West Michigan restaurants. The team worked on projects with restaurants like Founders, Brewery Vivant and New Holland, founder Troy Bosworth told News 8.

The team launched a national product line in 2014, later shifting to focus on designing that line with outsourced manufacturing. The company said it has worked with spots like Gordon Ramsay restaurants, Marriott Hotels and Hard Rock Resorts.

“We always … saw ourselves as a company who is going to embrace innovation,” Bosworth said. “We did that when we were design production company, and as we’ve been a products company for the last nine years, that’s been really a huge focus of ours.”

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The company recently launched a new online quoting system that the team had been working on for five years, which shortens the time it takes to get a quote from a few days to just a few minutes.

“As we’ve grown over the last few years, we really wanted to meet our future growth plans by partnering with a company that could actually help the company get to the next level,” Bosworth said.

The business caught the eye of Rapid Line, a metal component manufacturer headquartered in the Grand Rapids area. The employee stock ownership plan company had been looking for potential acquisitions to diversify and strengthen its business model, Studio Wise managing director J.T. Weis said.

“That’s what led us to the Studio Wise acquisition, a … small company with a very strong brand and a big brand,” Weis said. “We’re achieving our objective by diversifying our … metal components only into a completed restaurant table product.”

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With the acquisition, Weis expects Rapid Line will help Studio Wise grow significantly over the next few years. Some of the Studio Wise’s outsourced manufacturing may be brought to the Rapid Line facility, but the company’s three in-house employees are staying on.

“The goal is business as usual,” Weis said. “To carry those teams forward and hopefully with the growth we’re going to add new jobs here in Western Michigan over the coming years.”

Bosworth is staying with the company. Right now he’s working to ensure a smooth integration, and in the future will focus on designing and developing more products.

“We know our market really well and there’s a lot more that Studio Wise can offer in the marketplace for restaurants and hotels and office spaces,” he said. “That’s my passion, is to be able to continue to build the Studio Wise brand with Rapid Line through product development.”

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