“Growing up I wanted to be a professional golfer, but don’t we all,’’ says Mark Clarke, whose Harrington Kitchens will mark 30 years in business in April next year.
We’re in the Narellan showroom, and along for the interview with South West Voice is his son, James Clarke, who has just been promoted to general manager and design consultant.
Mark Clarke began Harrington Kitchens in April 1996 from a home office in his kitchen in Harrington Park – and armed with a vision to create great custom deigned kitchens for local families.
Almost 30 years later the company has grown into a thriving business with a dedicated manufacturing facility, two showrooms in Narellan and Bowral, and a team of more than 25 local staff, including six designers.
But that success did not happen by osmosis, and indeed the first five years of Harrington Kitchens were “very tough’’ according to Mark Clarke.
“No-one wanted to lend me money, no suppliers wanted to give me good prices because I was a nobody, so I had to do it real tough, with very low margins, paying myself a very low wage,’’ he says.
“I used to go to jobs and put handles on, or I’d go and help the guy who was helping me rip a kitchen out.
“When I got the factory in 1997, my first one, located next door to the current one in Narellan, at 6am I’d load the truck, then I’d talk to the two staff I had in the factory about what they were doing, go and do a quote, come back and say, how’d you go, go upstairs and draw the quote, schedule the work, got to bed at 10, 11, get up at 5 the next morning and start all over again.
“They were hard years.’’
As most successful people would know, when you put in the hard yakka eventually there will be a pay day, and Mark Clarke was no exception.
“The landlord virtually made me move into the bigger premises, where we are now,’’ he explains.
“I said it was too big, he said, no, not for you, you will be a success, you are very good, and that was the change.
“Soon as we moved in, I had a young fellow who could sell, and that was it: we started to go.’’
When it comes to James Clarke, well, as they say, the apple does not fall far from the tree.
It’s not surprising to hear that his Harrington Kitchens story is not very different from that of his father.
“I was hands on in the factory for five and a half years – sweeping the floors as a 10, 11 year old,’’ says James, who has a sister and a brother, neither of whom ended up in the family business.
He moved into sales and design around 2015.
“I always envisioned myself being part of it in some way, and by the way, I enjoyed the hands on part,’’ he says.
The Clarkes are slowly starting to think about how to mark the 30 year milestone next April.
“We’re going to do something,’’ says Mark.
“There will be a celebration of some sort,’’ James chimes in.
