Million Goods Opens Flagship Men’s Store in Fort Greene, Blending Fashion and Hospitality

Building a “community” has become the latest catchphrase in retail as merchants strive to move beyond just selling a bunch of products and work to build lasting relationships with their target customers.

While nearly everyone is jumping on this bandwagon, there are a few stores that appear to have nailed it. Million Goods is one of them.

The Brooklyn-based retailer founded by Drew Kaufmann and Matt Reyer opened a small storefront in Greenpoint in 2024 that offered a wine bar, music and an assortment of under-the-radar men’s brands.

The reaction was strong enough to prompt Million Goods to open a second, larger location in Fort Greene. The new 2,100-square-foot flagship in a landmarked building at 201 DeKalb Avenue replicates the concept of the first store, just on a larger scale.

Kaufmann, whose background includes Maison Kitsune and Bird Brooklyn, started brainstorming about creating a business that blended fashion and hospitality before the pandemic. “I saw every season that e-commerce companies like Ssense and Net-a-porter were taking a bigger bite of the business while independent stores struggled,” he said.

He said he had “always preferred curated, off-the-beaten-path independents,” and knew that online retailers could never offer the same experience as a physical store — something he believed could offer a “competitive advantage. Hospitality is something tech companies can’t do,” Kaufmann said.

He saw that listening bars had become popular in Japan and also identified a trend toward natural wines. So he decided to combine those two concepts with a fashion assortment centered around emerging brands, and approached Reyer about opening a store.

Reyer, who had started an e-commerce company in the automotive space that he sold to private equity, also had a background in the music industry, booking artists for shows in the Denver area. Despite the fact he had no fashion experience, when Kaufmann approached him with his idea, he was all in.

Within a year of opening the first 600-square-foot Million Goods in Greenpoint, they realized they were onto something, but needed more space. They found the location in Fort Greene, where they knew their target demographic was located, and signed a lease.

To pay for the expansion, the founders lined up a number of investors including Arock Castillo, founder of BPM Music, and Malcolm Dia, founder of Manual NYC.

The store, which also features an outdoor garden, was designed with architect Gjergji Shkurti of Figure Ground. The main floor features the listening room, bar and banquettes while the upstairs offers the apparel assortment and a back room for socializing. A spiral staircase connects the two floors.

“We fell in love with the staircase that could break the store down into two spaces,” Kaufmann said. Shkurti painted the staircase a bright red, which Reyer said “beckons” customers to explore the second floor.

In addition, much of the original character of the space was retained including the tin ceilings, fireplaces and wood floors. The architect also used Sapele millwork in a pecan tone, honed Breccia Pernice stone, Louis Poulsen lights and custom aluminum fixtures in the space. Frama and Emeco furniture complements the millwork throughout, including Philippe Starck’s Emeco stools at the bar and Tasca stools and chairs in the garden.

“It is designed for people to slow down and spend time,” Kaufmann said. “Whether someone comes in looking for a specific pair of trousers or simply walks in off the street, we want them to feel comfortable having a glass of wine or a cup of tea, reading a book in the backyard or wandering upstairs to discover something new. It is a place of ultimate leisure.”

Reyer added: “The space is designed to ask questions. At our Greenpoint location, the typical questions we receive is, ‘What is this place?’ A question that turns into discovery, exploring the backyard garden, then sitting down for a glass of wine or browsing the collections. At Fort Greene, we carried this over by installing large windows in the back of the listening floor so you can preview the garden from the entrance while also asking yourself, ‘What’s up this spiral staircase?’”

In terms of merchandise, the store offers a range of independent brands including Amomento, Archie, Berner Kühl, Coor, Document, Études Studios, Margaret Howell, MMIC, Nicholas Daley, OAMC Peacemaker, Pace, Pelegrim, Rold Skov, Soulland and Sunbuddies, among others.

“Broadly speaking, we look for clothes that are clean and easy to wear, but still have some sort of edge or coolness,” Kaufmann said. “Unfussy is a word we use a lot. Everything should fit into your wardrobe effortlessly and make you look cool immediately.”

Kaufmann said the customer in Greenpoint is a bit younger, averaging late 20s to early 30s who just got their first high-paying job. The Fort Greene shopper is expected to be older, mid-30s to early 40s, who are in “creative-adjacent industries. They’re the cool guy in the tech or finance office,” he said.

Looking ahead, they said they’re hoping to add other stores in the future. First up would be London, and they’re also contemplating expansion into hotels and other hospitality-related businesses.

Ambitious, no doubt, but “you’ve got to have a plan,” Kaufmann said with a laugh.