We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nick Meade a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Nick, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

Buying a suit can be a frustrating experience. When we started The Grotto Menswear there were essentially two options when it came to suiting up. You could go the Menswarehouse route and get a cheaply made ill-fitting rental or purchased suit OR you could go with something expensive. Wether custom or off the rack the expensive option always felt unattainable for most people and for some just a turn off.

We set out to create a new way to shop for formal wear. We are a custom suit company that any guy regardless of budget or occasion can come in, have a drink, and design the perfect suit. On top of that we guarantee a perfect fit since every suit we make is specifically made for you based off your body measurements and personal fit preferences. Our prices start at $399 and go up from there depending on the fabric you choose but you will not find a higher quality better fitting suit out there. There are thousands of fabrics to choose from (we have partnered. with the most prestigious mills in the world) and dozens of customizations such as buttons, liners, and accent threading. We can pretty much create anything you can dream up. Also, our showrooms are not retail stores but more similar to a lounge or bar that just so happens to sell suits. We want the experience of buying a suit to be amazing. No pushy sales people. No hidden costs. No huge markups. You really have to come in and see it to understand what The Grotto is all about.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

When my business partner, Matt Scord, and I were 30, all of our friends got married in that same year. We have a very close knit group of friends that we grew up with our whole lives living in Orange County and so Matt and I found ourselves as groomsmen in 8 weddings that year!

At that time half of our friends decided to rent from Menswarehouse and that was a huge disaster every time. The groom had their choice of black, blue, or gray suits. None of which even came close to fitting anyone. They were baggy, cheap, and felt disgusting. I couldn’t believe that after spending so much money on the wedding our friends chose to borrow a crappy tuxedo for one of the biggest days of their life. Looking back at those pictures it’s comical how bad we all look in those cheap baggy suits.

The other half of my friends wanted to buy something but had no idea where to go. We would meet up at the mall and walk around for hours not finding anything that was what the groom wanted. Even if we found something it would either end up being really expensive (more than the groomsmen wanted to pay) or not fit everyone in the party. We had one friend who was on the larger side so it was always difficult to find a brand that would be able to fit on all of our body types. Even if we did find something we would have to spend hundreds of dollars on alterations. We concluded that that was not a great option either.

Meanwhile, all the brides and bridesmaids at the time would go to a dress shop, have a glass of champagne and try on dresses together. It seemed like a much better experience than the guys were having and so it begged the question; Why is there nothing like this for the guys?

Later that year Matt and I relentlessly went to work on creating the first place where any guy getting married could just come and design anything they wanted. It could be any color, any design, any fit, and it would only cost a little more than a rental. We partnered with some amazing fabric mills, converted Matt’s garage into a showroom, and were off to the races. It was an instant hit. We underestimated the demand. It was so viral because we would throw parties for the wedding party so they could all come in, drink beer, have fun together, and get fitted for their wedding suits. This was nothing like they have experienced before. Half the groomsmen that would come in would also be getting married within the year so then they would bring in their groomsmen and so on and so forth. After a few months in the garage we got kicked out and opened our first official showroom in Orange County. We now have 3 showrooms in Costa Mesa, El Segundo, and Corona and are planning to keep expanding throughout Southern California and beyond.

As of today, weddings are only about a third of our business. We started in the wedding space to offer grooms something truly unique but then found out quickly that just about every guy was looking for a better way to buy a suit and frustrated with the other options that were out there. We quickly became the place to go if you need a suit for anything.

Matt and I set out to create a place and the experience that we would want if we were buying a suit. Fairly priced, unmatched customer service, insanely nice product, perfect fit, cool environment…. I think we nailed it.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

WORD OF MOUTH. For the first 5 years we did not spend a dime on marketing and we had more business than we could handle. Today we spend a modest amount on digital marketing but the huge majority of our new clients still come from word of mouth.

Matt and I strongly believe that every single person who walks into one of our showrooms should have the most amazing experience. We treat our clients like family and make sure that everyone feels welcome and is blown away with our service and products. We know that if we create advocates and Grotto fanatics that we are setting ourselves up for long term success.

We do that by always doing the right thing. Yes, being profitable is important however never at the expense of doing right by the client. If we make a mistake then we will do everything in our power to fix it. We have found that by doing this we are not just creating immediate sales but life long relationships with our clients. I don’t know a single other menswear brand that goes as far as we do to make sure our clients are ecstatic with their experience.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

Matt and I both had successful careers when we started The Grotto. Matt was in finance and I was in software sales. We both had a strong desire to start our own business and really believed in the idea of The Grotto.

After months of doing research and setting up the business we decided we were ready for our first client. We will forever be thankful to, Betim Berisha (owner of BBI for any Porsche people out there), for taking the chance on a new business to suit up himself and his whole wedding party. We did it at Betim’s house since we did not have a showroom at the time. The wedding fitting went amazing! We all had a great time and Betim’s wedding party had a blast getting fitted while drinking beer and picking out their individual liners. Matt and I left Betim’s house feeling like we were on to something BIG. Everyone (including us) was so stoked on it.

Long story short, we ended up messing up the measurements for most of the suits and it was a huge learning process for us but in the end all the guys looked amazing and we were officially open for business. Word quickly got out from there and we took every suit we made as a learning moment to perfect our processes and product. After several more months we had it wired and felt unstoppable.

The first few years were tough. Matt and I wanted to self fund this business so we could maintain full control and run it the way we wanted. To make that happen that meant working our normal day jobs all day and then The Grotto all night and all weekend. Because we were by appointment only we were able to stack all of our fittings between 6 and 9pm on weekdays and then all day on Saturday and Sunday. We both worked over 100 hours a week for the first 3 years and rarely took a day off. We made a lot of sacrifices to make The Grotto what it is today. Most people don’t see all the unpaid hours and long days that Matt and I put in over that time.

A huge milestone for us is when we were able to hire our first employee. I remember it felt like such a huge deal at the time. It meant we didn’t have to work 7 days a week. This was a huge accomplishment for us. There were thousands of suits that had to be sold to get to that point. So much time and energy. The second big milestone was when Matt quit his day job and went all in. Then finally when I was able to go all in with the business in 2021.

There are many ways to start a business that don’t require so much energy, risk, and sacrifice, but at this point I am very happy we did things the way we did because we did it with zero help from anyone and we own and control the entire company with no one to report to except ourselves.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thegrottomenswear.com and www.groomsgrotto.com
• Instagram: @thegrottomenswear and @groomsgrotto
• Facebook: @thegrottomenswear and @groomsgrotto
• Linkedin: The Grotto Menswear
• Yelp: The Grotto Menswear