Flemington, NJ, April 18--Joel Resnick admits the typical customer at his family's business, the Flemington Department Store, is not Robert De Niro or Dame Judi Dench, according to North Jersey.com.
But those stars and dozens more will sample the wares of the 40-year-old mom-and-pop shop over 12 consecutive days. When you say "roll out the red carpet" at the Tribeca Film Festival - beginning Tuesday and running through May 1 - it's the Resnicks who do the rolling.
"It's almost like a hobby," said Resnick. "Work is stressful, but we really enjoy the red carpet ... it's really exciting."
Resnick and his father, Ted, plan on using about 3,000 yards of "chili peppers" red carpet for the festival's 18 venues hosting the festival's movie premieres. The carpet is ordered from a manufacturer, trimmed and edged at the shop, transported to lower Manhattan and laid on the concrete.
"It's builder's-grade carpet, not as high quality as you'd put in your home - that would be way too thick and heavy," said Joel Resnick. "You don't want these big stars sinking and tripping."
For the Tribeca festival, the work is usually done long before the stars show up. After the film festival is over, the carpet is so worn that it must be destroyed.
The Flemington Department Store sells flooring and furnishings for individual homes as well as for major housing and office developments. The red carpet offshoot, dubbed The Red Carpet Store, accounts for about 20 percent of its business, and it came together about three years ago almost by accident, the Resnicks said.
"We kind of fell into it," said Joel Resnick. "It started out as a runner from a limo here and there and it just grew."
The Resnicks provide all specialty carpets for events at Rockefeller Center, including a solid white carpet for a nightclub-style party and a dark blue carpet with fish details for another event.
When NBC broadcast from Rockefeller Center for the 2004 election, the Resnicks made a carpet that resembled the original American flag. When the rock band U2 wanted a carpet for its current "Vertigo" tour, the Resnicks designed one with a dizzying red-and-black pattern. The cost of a custom carpet can range from $300 for a small runner to more than $25,000.
Because the company is online (redcarpetstore.com) the Resnicks often get orders from places from Alaska to Guam.
"We're shipping right now to an air force base in Germany," Ted Resnick said. "We've done office parties, school proms ... every week around the Oscars we send red carpet to private parties all over."
The job can have its stressful moments.
"The craziest was when I was in the middle of a job and the guy asks to change the color. It was black and he decided he wanted red," Ted Resnick said. "We had someone drive it in from Flemington. The show started at 7:30 and we walked out of there at about 7:25."
Joel Resnick doesn't hesitate when asked about his favorite job. At the MTV Awards in 2003, he got the chance to hang out with the stars after putting down the carpet.
"I'm 24 years old - let's just say that I'm not as mature as I'm going to get," Resnick said. "I see about 350 girls all dressed to kill and all the MTV VJs show up and I'm like, 'You're kidding me!' It was awesome."
Dad agreed that it was his son's finest hour.
"He thought he died and went to heaven," Ted Resnick said. "He was on cloud nine."
