By Matt Wiley
Imagine a T-shirt that could hold all of your stuff that you’d usually stuff into a purse or pants pockets. Now, imagine that same T-shirt covered in bacon, or at least pictures of bacon.
Some guys from New Tampa recently made that strange piece of clothing you’re imagining a reality.
Some days, it just seems like we can’t fit everything we need in our pockets or purses. Match that logic with the current trend of colored t-shirts with a differently colored or patterned pockets and you have “Bucket Tees,” the brainchild of two former New Tampa residents, who decided to try their hand at entrepreneurship after college.
“We’ve got big, crazy pockets smack-dab in the middle of T-shirts,” says Bucket Tees co-founder and Tampa Palms resident Jake Kehlenbeck.
Kehlenbeck, 24, and current Miami resident Alex Alfaro, 23 — both of whom graduated from Freedom High in 2010 and went off to separate colleges — founded the company in the fall of 2014, launched a website this past March and have been selling their unique “tees” ever since.
Kehlenbeck graduated from Florida State University (FSU) in Tallahassee with a B.S. (Bachelor of Science) degree in Psychology, while Alfaro earned a B.S. degree in Business Administration from Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. Each graduated in 2014. Just recently, they added John Grellner, 24, a 2009 Paul R. Wharton High grad (who earned a B.S. degree in Finance and Real Estate, also at FSU).
Although originally joking about the idea of a T-shirt with a giant pocket one night while hanging at Peabody’s Billiards & Games (located off Amberly Dr. in Tampa Palms), Jake says he thought about the idea again later and decided it would be pretty funny. So, they went to Target and bought a striped T-shirt and a plain T-shirt, cutting fabric off the striped one to make a pocket to add to the plain one.
“My mom sewed that one because I’m not much of a seamstress, and it turned out way more cool than we expected,” Kehlenbeck says, adding that he and Alfaro started wearing the Ts out and about at local bars and bowling alleys.
“People really like them, so we decided to start a company and started selling them,” he adds.
Current designs include the previously mentioned “Bucket O’ Bacon,” a flamingo-covered pocket known as “The Floridian” and a mustachioed pocket, known fittingly as “The Gentleman.”
Kehlenbeck says that harnessing the entrepreneurial spirit and starting a company was a little more difficult than he expected.
“I thought it would be a little easier,” he says, something he attributed to people’s reactions when they would first see the shirts. “I thought people would come flocking at first, but it was actually pretty slow.”
That was until the company was featured on Miami’s WSVN-TV’s “Deco Drive” segment.
“Our sales tripled after that,” Kehlenbeck says. The segment depicted all of the wacky, yet completely practical, ways the shirts’ jumbo pocket could be used. They can hold anything, really, from beers and burritos to keys, wallets and puppies, you name it. Seriously.
Kehlenbeck says that most recently, he sent one to a friend’s little brother who is a member of Wharton High’s theater group, who wore it to school.
“The group just placed an order for 68 shirts,” Kehlenbeck says. “It was pretty awesome.”
The shirts, which currently only come in men’s sizes (although girls buy them too, Kehlenbeck says), currently are produced in Miami and Kehlenbeck says that future designs could include tank tops for the beach, as well as women’s sizes and designs.
Check out BucketTees. If you buy one, be sure to send us your photo showing us how you “tuck it in the bucket,” the company’s slogan to NTNeighborhoodNews.com
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