{"id":1747,"date":"2026-06-29T11:37:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T11:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/corporate-movers-usa.com\/?p=1747"},"modified":"2026-06-29T11:37:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T11:37:10","slug":"after-bankruptcy-and-a-kiln-disaster-felt-and-fat-is-remaking-itself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/corporate-movers-usa.com\/?p=1747","title":{"rendered":"After bankruptcy and a kiln disaster, Felt and Fat is remaking itself"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<div><audio><\/audio><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The vibrant, paint-flecked, confetti-esque glazed bowls are Philly icons. But at the end of January, these and hundreds of other dishes lay in ruins inside Felt and Fat\u2019s kiln.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/corporate-movers-usa.com\/?p=1745\">After a century of false starts, soccer has taken off in the U.S.<\/a><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Philly\u2019s back-to-back snowstorms and freezing temperatures froze the ceramic producer\u2019s warehouse\u2019s sprinkler lines, causing sprinkler heads to crack. <\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Mist blanketed Felt and Fat\u2019s kiln \u2014 and kilns are not supposed to ever get wet \u2014 for twelve hours. The kiln was just over a year old, custom-ordered from the Netherlands. It cost over $300,000 and was the keystone of founder Nate Mell\u2019s plans for expansion.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<blockquote>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><svg><g><g><g><\/g><\/g><\/g><\/svg><\/div>\n<div>\n<div>View this post on Instagram<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div> <\/div>\n<div> <\/div>\n<div> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>The kiln took a year to arrive and was outfitted with a specialized rack system that made loading and unloading pieces \u2014 up to 250,000 per year \u2014 easy.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cThe kiln company told us they couldn\u2019t repair it and with high pressure gas going into the kiln, even if they could, they couldn\u2019t speak for it in terms of liability.\u201d The electrical components were all soaked and frozen. The inside was completely destroyed, said Mell, 40. \u201cWe still haven\u2019t quantified our revenue loss,\u201d he said, despite getting his old kiln back in use about a month after the disaster.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>The kiln explosion came on the heels of Felt and Fat filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. \u201cWe were really struggling in 2024 and 2025, which was a terrible time to raise money. The early 2020s for us were all about growth,\u201d said Mell.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>In order to get out of bankruptcy, Mell had to come up with a reorganization plan for his creditors. It required getting back to Felt and Fat\u2019s roots.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>It all started in 2013, when Ellen Yin and Eli Kulp commissioned custom ceramics from Mell for the original High Street restaurant, which opened in September of that year. He officially formed the business in 2014, and over the next decade, Felt and Fat grew from a two-person ceramics studio \u2014 encompassing Mel and former business partner Wynn Bauer, who left the company in 2017 \u2014 into one of the region\u2019s most recognizable dinnerware manufacturers. Their plates were seemingly at every award-winning Philadelphia restaurant, from River Twice to Tesiny to the now-closed Laurel.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cWe had been growing the same way everyone else grows: build a factory, add people, add machines,\u201d said Mell, a Temple grad, who admitted that this trajectory had little to do with what he had been trained in. \u201cI went to the Tyler School of Art and Architecture and studied glass but took classes in ceramics. I worked as a server in Philadelphia restaurants for eight years and started delving deeper into ceramics by working part time at the Clay Studio back when it was in Old City.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/corporate-movers-usa.com\/?p=1743\">The battle for backyard chickens | Inquirer South Jersey<\/a><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>He realized that what he and his team does well is \u201cgreat design, really interesting glaze work with relatively low minimum order quantities and interesting collaborations.\u201d His expansion plans were taking him away from that design and glaze work. \u201cThe bulk of what we were doing, and what every other factory does, is taking clay and turning it into a shape.\u201d<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>He reached out to an old contact, the company Anfora, located outside of Mexico City, which has been making ceramics for over a century. \u201cThey do massive volume, making stuff the way we do. They treat their people well and make the same quality dinnerware with the same porcelain clay we use.\u201d<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>His restructuring plan for Felt and Fat meant Anfora would produce the shapes for Felt and Fat, and they would be glazed in Philadelphia by hand. Mell just received the first of his shapes from Anfora, with more to come. <\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re going to have our standard shapes formed at Anfora. But we\u2019re going to expand our high touch, low output forming\u2014 hand thrown and slip cast,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to be even more handmade than we were before. And we\u2019ll be able to lean into that. But we\u2019ll also have the consistency of our standard pieces.\u201d<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>These days, Felt and Fat has just seven employees, including Mell. \u201cEverybody gets their hands in everything. We\u2019re a tight little team,\u201d said Mell, though he hopes to continually add more employees back at a more sustainable rate than before.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cThe two years leading up to this were tortuous,\u201d said Mell. But he hopes the future will be brighter, with slower, more purposeful growth.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><i>Felt and Fat\u2019s studio is open for browsing by appointment from Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 3750 M street, Philadelphia, PA 19124. To make an appointment, email <\/i><i>support@feltandfat.com<\/i><i> or call 215 259 8773. Orders can also be placed online at their <\/i><i>website<\/i><i> and picked up at their studio.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/corporate-movers-usa.com\/?p=1741\">At first glance, the Flyers\u2019 2026 draft feels underwhelming. Only time will tell.<\/a><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October and then the explosion of their kiln in January, Kensington ceramics company Felt and Fat forges a new path.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>After bankruptcy and a kiln disaster, Felt and Fat is remaking itself - Corporate Movers USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/corporate-movers-usa.com\/?p=1747\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"After bankruptcy and a kiln disaster, Felt and Fat is remaking itself - 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