The Big Opening

It's been just over a week since the opening party and I've only now had the chance to sit down and try to collect my thoughts. Here they are: Holy Shit.

You kids sure love a party. Best guess is over 300 folks showed up to welcome Hugh to Midtown. All I know is we went through six cases of bubbly (and three bottles of San Pellegrino) in four hours. Drunks, the lot of you. Come back soon.

Here are some photos I cribbed from Facebook and Twitter of the event, since I didn't have a chance to think about getting someone to take pics at the party.

Ted Balowski and Nick Gorga, founders of Hatch Detroit and the people
who really made this happen.  This isn't a red-eye problem by the way,
 Ted's eyes actually look like that. It's weird.

My old friends from Ann Arbor drove out, and got this pic of me with my family.
That's my mom Peg Posch in the foreground, you may remember she was my pit bull
during the Hatch competition.

Me giving thanks and extolling the importance of independent business in Detroit.
They give our neighborhoods their personalities and they rule. Support them all.

That's right, a champagne pyramid. That's Kyle pouring with me, she is awesome
and has helped me at every Hugh party since the first one. She was also a partner
in the Woodbridge Gypsy Den & Tearoom, the first runner-up in our Hatch finals.
And yes we are still friends.  Detroit people are awesome that way.

Almost There.

Even Playboy magazine is anxious for Hugh to open. No need to wait much longer - Hugh opens at 3pm on Friday, November 16.  We're finally there!

Happy Hugh Year!

Yeah, I'm a little late to the game with that, but I like to think of this whole year as the Hugh Year so I'm gonna run with it!  Here are a couple updates about Hugh.

Things are off to a good start and things are really ramping up. There's a lot of background work that goes into starting a small business, and I'm really fortunate that the Hatch Detroit prize comes with some important donated services.

The first place I stopped was at the offices of the intellectual property experts at Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn where I met with Mike Lisi and Julie Kretzschmer. They were cool and down-to-earth and were very helpful in explaining the ins and out of trademark law to a neophyte. Plus Mike knew my old store Mezzanine from its Ann Arbor days and that always excites me.

For a little guy, spending the money to protect your ideas and your brand is usually low on the list of priorities (it was always a "wish list" item when I had Mezzanine) so it was pretty amazing to have a chance to talk to attorneys who are the best in the biz. It may seem overkill for an independent retail store to officially secure its brand (would anyone really steal it?) but I think Hugh is a super idea and I have big plans for it. So don't even think of copying it, I'm covered!

The other cool thing was my appearance in HOUR Detroit! My friend Alexa Stanard penned a great little profile of Hugh and Hatch Detroit and my tips for adopting classic bachelor style in 2012. HOUR is always so wonderful about covering cool things happening in the city and I was pretty excited to be featured. They are good people.

Now I'm not sure if the editors did this to protect the delicate sensitivities of HOUR readers or if they did it to protect me from overzealous parents who might not have appreciated the comparison, but I had a pretty good quote (I'm told) that was cut from the piece. Paragraph four should have read:

Although Hugh will aim squarely for the unencumbered male who knows how to make a mean Manhattan, Posch says everyone, even families, can enjoy the store’s well-designed home goods built to last.  

“At Hugh we’re not super concerned with child-friendliness,” Posch says. “But, you know, babies fall down and drunks fall down. Some of those concerns are universal.”

Many thanks to Dante Stella for the photograph, and being available on short notice to help me out. He is Hugh's biggest booster. In case you are wondering, the photo was taken in my friend's studio at the Scarab Club and if I look a little bloated, it was the day after Thanksgiving, so I was. Normally I am thin like supermodel.