Attention plumbers, carpenters and all the other hardworking men and women who have been asking: "When's Duluth Trading going to open in Ramsey?" The store is open and a grand opening, complete with lumberjacks throwing axes and sawing wood, is scheduled for Thursday.

It will be the first Duluth Trading store in New Jersey. Before 2010, Duluth's clothes were sold only online or through catalogs, but the company is now opening stores around the country.

A "flannel ribbon cutting" will be held at 9 a.m., and lumberjack shows will be held in the parking lot starting at 10:30 a.m. and 12 noon.

The store open to customers on September 18, a week before the grand opening, to make sure everything is running smoothly, and to ensure that staff members are prepared to handle opening-day crowds.

Karl Schuetz, manager of the Ramsey store, said Wednesday that since the soft opening repeat Duluth customers and persons discovering the brand for the first time have visited the store.

One of the reasons Duluth wanted to be in Ramsey, Schuetz said, is the company has a large concentration of online customers in New Jersey. "In part our customer demand brought us here," he said.

The store will have between 35 and 40 employees.

Duluth Trading Company began in 1989 as a company that sold one product: a canvas bag that contractors use to carry their tools to job sites. It grew as a catalog and online retailer in the 1990s and started opening retail stores in 2010.

The brand is known for its cheeky ads with pitches for such products as "Buck Naked Underwear" and "Ballroom Jeans," as well as its long-tail T-shirts that hide the dreaded "plumber's butt." The brand built a following billing itself as the workingman's hero, but it has expanded its fan base to office workers, women and the general population in recent years.

It's among a growing list of formerly online-only or catalog-only retailers opening physical stores. President and Chief Executive Officer Stephanie Pugliese has told investors the company has seen that online sales from a region increase when a physical store opens nearby.

The company has leased 13,300 square feet at Ramsey Square, the shopping center at 1300 Route 17 north anchored by a Kohl's store.

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