One day after saying it had no public information to share, eSolutions, formerly known as Bush Industries, announced it is closing its doors.

Employees were told during a 9 a.m. meeting Thursday that the Jamestown plant – and longtime headquarters of the company – was closing. Rumors had been running rampant throughout the community for the past week that Bush was closing. Facebook posts have said employees have been told the Jamestown plant is closing. As of Thursday, Bush Industries officials are neither confirming or denying the community reports.

In an email reply to The Post-Journal’s questions regarding a possible closure, an eSolutions employee replied to The Post-Journal’s question.

“At this time, we don’t have any public information to share,” the employee said while providing an email address for continued contact.

The response didn’t necessarily dispel the rumor. Less than 24 hours later the public was notified. The reason for the public rumors came from the way some employees were told, according to an employee who spoke on condition of anonymity on Thursday. Some second shift employees were told April 23, then posted on Facebook. That meant other employees hadn’t been told. Other employees were told Monday morning.

They just kept everything kind of hush-hush,” the employee said. “I feel like they were told Wednesday and we didn’t find out until the following Monday. I don’t know what to think. It sucks. I’ve been there five years, and now there are 200-some people without jobs. … Mention Rob and Randy Lingenfelter. They were really great guys, great bosses. I’d go back and work for those guys in a minute.”

40-year-employee Kevin Briggs of Cassadaga said officials were tight-lipped on the closing.

“They just told us that the bank took it over. They didn’t tell us anything else. It’s tough. It’s a sad day,” Briggs said.

The New York State Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act requires covered businesses to provide early warnings of closures and layoffs to all affected employees, their representatives, the Department of Labor and others. Through Thursday afternoon there has been no entry in the state Labor Department’s WARN database regarding the Jamestown Bush Industries plant.

Paul Bush founded Starline Housewares in 1959 in Little Valley. That company eventually became Bush Industries, transitioning to Bush Brothers Products Corporation in 1961 and then Bush Industries INc. in 1975. The company’s headquarters and manufacturing operations moved to Jamestown in 1984.

Bush was named “One of the 200 Best Small Companies in America” by Forbes in 1997 and received the President’s “E” Award for Excellence in Exporting from the U.S. Secretary of Commerce. The company grew rapidly into the early 2000s with a focus on office furniture, launching direct shipping and installation services and receiving the Best of the Best Partner of the Year Award from Best Buy in 2001. In 2010, Bush Furniture announced a licensing agreement with Kathy Ireland Worldwide and, in 2014, returned to local ownership with Jim Garde, Neil Frederick, Mike Evans and Steve Phelan of the senior executive team acquiring 100% of the company. The company was purchased in 2018 by Lorraine Capital, which named Evans as the company’s president and CEO before Bush was then acquired by Bestar in 2020.

Evans spoke to The Post-Journal after his 2022 retirement and talked about some of the company’s financial issues.

Bush Industries experienced a challenging time from the mid-2000s until about 2016. Evans said the market was not good and furniture retail sales shrank rapidly.

“The whole team, I think, just remained pretty vigilant and it took a lot of persistence to overcome some of the challenges we had,” he said. “It was a real struggle for us for about 10 years.”

Bush Industries struggled to adapt to the changing landscape of the furniture market. Evans said it took the company a considerable amount of time to transition from producing furniture sold in retail stores to selling furniture directly to consumers.

“The struggles were really when we were still heavily reliant on retail, and the retail side of our business was shrinking,” he said. “We had to go through a lot of restructuring and downsizing before I came. Once the company really focused on ecommerce, we started to have some growth but we had to really rethink everything.”

Evans said the year following the merger with Bestar resulted in a “super strong” year for the business. However, he acknowledged that due to challenges with the pandemic and supply chain issues, the company has experienced additional struggles over the past couple years. Nevertheless, Evans said the company is continuing to expand, with hopes for a bright future.

“We continue to expand our product portfolio, and we have a tremendous number of new products,” he said. “As soon as the economy starts to turn around again, I’m very confident the business will be growing again.”

In 2021, Bestar announced its new corporate brand, eSolutions Furniture Group, to sell residential and commercial furniture on the international market. eSolutions Furniture Group will serve as the parent company which will continue to manufacture it’s fine Bestar, Bush Furniture, Bush Business Furniture and Kathy Ireland branded products.

Michael Zabrodsky contributed to this report.