Adopted Retailer January: Point 5 Kitchens

Continuing our series, we return to Point 5 Kitchens in Muswell Hill. Although plans for a second showroom are taking longer than expected, the team have managed to find a silver lining

by George Dean20 January, 2025

Sponsored by Alku

Tucked between Highgate and Alexandra Palace, London’s Muswell Hill district is home to the first-ever Point 5 Kitchens showroom. And at some point in the next few months, the next-door neighbourhood of Belsize Park will become home to the business’ second.

Point 5 Kitchens is the combined effort of furniture designer Joe Kardani and cabinet maker Tomasz Kolasinski. After running a successful fitting business for several years, the duo decided to officially launch Point 5 Kitchens in 2012, which then led to their first showroom opening in 2016.

As Kardani explains: “We both fitted for a lot of high-end companies, but some of their cabinets weren’t great, although the doors were fantastic. We just thought: ‘You know what? We can do a better product’.

Many retailers like to say they treat their staff and suppliers like family, but at Point 5, that’s literally true, as all of its kitchens are made by Kolasinski’s brother in Poland before being sent to the UK.

“I’m a cabinet maker, just like the rest of my family,” says Kolasinski, “My grandfather was a cabinet maker, and my dad was too. So when we say we all of our kitchens are bespoke, we really mean it.”

Rounding out the team are designer Wojtek Pawelczak – who was a very worthy finalist in the Rising Star category at last year’s kbbreview Awards – and Point 5’s lead designer, Manuel Fusco – coincidentally a finalist for this year’s kbbreview Awards – who has been with the business since the showroom first opened its doors. 

In recent years, Point 5 Kitchens has become a well-known name in the independent kitchen sector, and judging by what’s on offer in the current showroom, it’s clear that the team has a deep understanding of kitchen design. Their displays do an excellent job of carefully balancing popular on-trend styles with the business’ own bespoke touches.

In Fusco’s own words: “We use trends – and we use them in the right way – but they’re not something we let define us, and we never want to sell something that’s not going to last. We use trends as a way of keeping the clients happy, but we’re also looking to give them something that’s going to be timeless.”

But the aesthetics of a kitchen are second only to functionality, which Pawelczak says is another key feature of Point 5’s philosophy. “I studied and worked as a chef, so the functionality of a kitchen is something that’s really important to me,” he explains, “because I’ve used kitchens professionally, I really know where things should go layout-wise, and we like to really understand how clients would use the space.”

Making moves

As any retailer knows, making the leap to open a second showroom is no small feat, and the road to get there is paved with hundreds of decisions, both big and small. Many retailers opt to open their second showroom a considerable distance away from their first, in the hopes of capturing an entirely new customer base. However, Point 5 is interesting because its owners want to do the total opposite of that. They plan to open the second showroom just a few miles to the south west.

Kardani explains: “We really are so bespoke, and every job needs to be gone through differently. Because of that I don’t think we can massively expand to roll it out like a chain. Although Muswell Hill is great because it’s an affluent area, Belsize Park is just a little step higher. It’s already close, but we don’t actually get that many customers from there, so the idea is we’ll get to access a whole new market because people there don’t really know we exist yet.” 

It’s a bold move, but looking back over the company’s history, the team say they’ve never been afraid to go against the grain and set out into uncharted territory. 

Kolasinski recalls: “When we started out, everyone we spoke to told us not to open a showroom. At the time, we were selling from our iPads, and it was difficult because we were basically taking all of our clients to former customers’ houses. 

“We were determined to have our first showroom, and we had to think a lot about whether to open on the high street or an industrial estate, but this has ended up being the best decision we could ever have made – and we only got there by going against what everyone said.”

Timing is everything

The whole point of kbbreview’s new series of Adopted Retailer features is to peel back the shiny veneer of luxury KBB retail, and try to highlight the real stories behind these incredibly unique businesses. 

In the spirit of that, one genuine development at Point 5 since we last spoke to them in October was the news that that their plans to open a second showroom have been delayed slightly.

“We were initially hoping we’d have the keys a few months ago, but the process has taken longer than we thought,” says Kardani. 

“To be honest, the delay has given us more time to get the designs right. So we’ve just got to do the final measurements, and then we can just order everything. We know all the materials and everything else already. 

“There’s obviously a lot of planning that goes into this, but we’ve done all that now, so we’re not running behind saying ‘what do we need to do?’. We’ve got the keys now, and I think we should be able to get everything together pretty quickly, but there’s a lot to do there. We still need to rewire it and replumb it – but it’s all going well!”

With keys now in hand and designs sorted, that’s two big check marks on the Point 5 to-do list. However, what about staffing the new space? 

When kbbreview last spoke to Kardani, he said the issue of taking on more staff to handle the increased demand from the new showroom space was one of the major hurdles Point 5 would have to deal with. 

Never one to stand still, the team has made the most of the additional time and has already taken on another member of staff before the new showroom’s even opened its doors.

“We’ve got a new guy in, Max, so there’s five of us now in the showroom,” Kardani says, continuing, “He’s working out really nicely, and he seems to be picking everything up and he’s got a good work ethic, so I’ve got high hopes for him.

“Myself and Tomasz are going to go to the new showroom and take Matt with us, leaving Manuel and Wojtek in the existing showroom, and we’re looking to get someone else in to help them. We prefer to take on younger people and train them up ourselves so we can explain the way we work. That way, we know they’ll work well with us.”

So with the second showroom’s target launch moved from January to a (hopefully) much sunnier springtime opening, what’s on the cards at Point 5 Kitchens before we check in with them again in a few months? 

Kardani says that despite the current market conditions, Point 5’s order book is still going strong, explaining: “We’ve got quite a lot going on in terms of jobs. A lot of customers are coming in as well so that’s good too. It just seems to be at the moment we’re stacked out with drawings and design work, so it’s just a case of getting through that now and keeping people happy.

“I’m feeling really positive about all the customers and the things we’ve got going on at the moment – we’ve got some big jobs coming up, so we’re also looking to have a really great start to the new year.”

When we next hear from Point 5 in April, the team will either be on the cusp of – or will have just opened – their brand new showroom in Belsize Park. 

With a busy couple of months ahead for them, the team at kbbreview is wishing them well!