Using a popular retail marketing trend, the Naples-based Hoffmann Family of Companies will create vignettes to showcase its variety of local products and businesses at the Hoffmann Experience, a store-within-a-store concept in downtown Naples.
Hoffmann Experience, opening in a former bank branch at 625 Fifth Ave. S., will be a one-stop shop for everything Hoffmann, a Naples family which has acquired more than 30 Southwest Florida businesses, most of which are in the hospitality and service industry. Visitors will be able to purchase items such as Everblades hockey tickets, Mitch’s Cookies favorites, Stan’s Coffee products, Tacos & Tequila Cantina gift cards, Coral Cay Adventure Golf passes and even wines from the Hoffmanns’ Missouri vineyards.
“Anything you can physically purchase from any of the companies will be there,” said Chris Armstrong, managing partner and chief marketing officer for the Hoffmann Family of Companies. “All of the companies will have a representation of some sort there.”
Mitch’s Cookies will have more than a representation at the Hoffmann Experience. The local dessert bar is relocating its downtown Naples location a short distance away to the center of the new Hoffmann store. William “Mitch” and Lynn Mitchell opened the second location of their old-fashioned soda fountain business in another Hoffmann-owned building at 520 Park St. shortly after Mitch’s Cookies became part of the Hoffmann Family of Companies in 2020.
The Hoffmann Experience will allow Mitch’s Cookies to move from off the beaten path to the center of attention. “It will be a positive step for additional exposure right on Fifth Avenue. That’s the key,” said Mitch Mitchell.
The Mitchells have 50 varieties of freshly baked gourmet cookies they will be rotating for sale as well as serving ice cream favorites at the Hoffmann Experience. “It will be the same ice cream, same cookies, same floats, same malted milkshakes, same egg creams,” Mitchell said.
The new store also will feature clothing and accessories from The Augusta Clothing Co., a boutique Jerri Hoffmann launched April 28 in a former winery building in Augusta, Missouri. Mrs. Hoffmann’s passion project is part of the $150 million investment she and her husband, David, are making around a wine destination in the Missouri region where they got their start.
Other products from Hoffmann companies will be grouped by their specific focus in vignettes at the Hoffmann Experience store, Armstrong said. For instance, a watersports area will feature information about the Hoffmanns’ Naples Beach Water Sports, Marco Island Water Sports and Regency Watersports activities. A local tourism section will promote Everglades Excursions, Miss Naples and Naples Princess sightseeing cruises, Naples Transportation & Tours, Naples Trolley Tours and Segway of Naples Tours.
The new store is on the ground floor of a three-story building on Fifth Avenue that Hoffmann has owned since 2015. The retail unit most recently was a SunTrust bank branch but it previously was a Fifth Third Bank office.
Hoffmann Experience is still in the permitting process, but the project is moving forward and soon will be knocking down some interior walls to create a more open space in the old bank building. “We will be open by season,” Armstrong said.
