GULF SHORES - Gary Brandt, owner of Mattress Gallery, is a quiet man — but you should hear him listen.

He has listened to customers since he was in high school when he acquired a warehouse and created an auction house. His 16-year old son a student at Gulf Shores High School, is following the same business style as his father — listening, working and selling. 

Brandt joined the Air Force after high school in Northwest Missouri, and served in Alaska, Germany and Korea. He could have stayed for full retirement but the business world called to him. For whatever reason, his magnetic compass took him to Mancelona, Mich., about 100 miles south of Mackinaw. He operated  an hotel there with a Key West flair.

The old joke is that Northern Michigan has two seasons, July 4th and winter, so understandably he sought a warmer clime. He has been in South Alabama since 1998, and has been sole proprietor of a quick lube and oil change and a furniture store. Then came the mattress business in 2006, and he has developed the business in number and quality. 

Mattress is a common word in an uncommon market, and Brandt offers the big names to his customers. The word “gallery” is less common, but it typifies Brandt’s character and personality. Galleries display style and elegance, and these characterize Brandt.

Some stores are jammed and stacked but Mattress Galleries are orderly arranged and there is no mistaking the art forms created. All floor displays are backed up by a huge warehouse of inventory to be delivered to the customer in one of the three trucks now being recognized on the highways and byways — displaying the logos of famous mattresses. 

Observable in Mattress Gallery is the calm, unhurried way in which salespersons go about their profession. No pushing is evident — they have a product and the customer has a preference. The sales personnel are referred to as “comfort specialists.” (Grandmother’s feather bed is a distant yet treasured memory, and not always comfortable.)

Mattress, derived from the Arabic “to throw down” (what we country folks called a “pallet” after the French word for straw bed) has come a long and scientific way to bring comfort to the sleeper.

Time and space permit only one excursion into the realm of technology and creature comforts — it’s the product feature called “traditional pocketed coil,” a construction to reduce motion transfer. The advertising shows bowling pins on one side of the mattress, undisturbed by dropping a bowling ball on the opposite side. So, if you have a tossing, turning, leaping, sleepless partner just relax. You won’t be dumped on the hardwood floor.

It’s hard to miss Mattress Gallery on the Alabama Gulf Coast. Go website to www.mattressgallery91.com. Brandt has stores in Foley (headquarters), Gulf Shores, Orange Beach, Semmes and Spanish Fort. Find a mattress (and in Gulf Shores and Spanish Fort stores, iron bedsteads) and get an education from the “comfort specialists.”