About E-Z Shelving Systems

E-Z Shelving History

The original design for the E-Z Shelving brand of cantilever shelving was developed during WWII, and manufactured and marketed by Standard Steel Works of North Kansas City starting in 1945.  In the mid-70’s E-Z was acquired by Ronald Johnson, a successful engineer and entrepreneur with Swedish-American roots who admired the system’s strength and efficiency.

One of Johnson’s early successes was to build reach-in and walk-in cooler shelving for over 3,000 Pizza Hut restaurants during that chain’s period of rapid expansion.  As a no-nonsense engineer, he promoted the shelving’s durability to restaurants, hospitals, schools, research facilities and other heavy-use environments that require easy-to-clean, easy-to-configure, high-capacity storage surfaces.

What Johnson wasn’t expecting was for E-Z to develop a following for its aesthetic properties.  Architects and designers frequently use E-Z’s shelving components to contribute to a “mid-century modern” or “industrial” feel, or to create clean lines in residential settings.  E-Z is part of projects featured in publications such as Architectural Digest, the New York Times, Vogue, and Dwell, to name a few, and it’s just as likely to turn up on sharing sites such as Houzz or Pinterest these days as it is in the lab of a California university.

E-Z Shelving Today

E-Z’s long-time employees, including second-generation Johnson family members, are proud to continue manufacturing in Merriam, Kansas, even as most other shelving production has moved overseas.  “When one of our customers comes to us with a design challenge or a time constraint, manufacturing locally means we can come through for them in ways that others can’t,” says Jim Parmiter, E-Z’s Senior Project Specialist.