Bealls (Florida)

Bealls, Inc.

Type	Private
Industry	Retail
Founded	1915
Headquarters	Bradenton, Florida
Number of locations	500
Products	Apparel, footwear, accessories, jewelry, home goods,luggage, and housewares.
Website	www.beallsinc.com

Bealls /ˈbɛlz/ is a United States retail corporation of 500 stores founded in 1915 in Bradenton, Florida. Bealls consists of three chains, Bealls Department Stores, Bealls Outlet Stores, and Bunulu. Bealls Inc'. serves as the parent corporation. The group is not affiliated with Bealls Texas, although the two overlap in some markets. Where there is overlap, Bealls Outlet operates as Burkes Outlet. The CEO of Bealls Inc. is Steve Knopik.Bealls (FL) Department Stores, Inc. and Bealls Outlet Stores, Inc. are headed by Presidents Dan Love and Dave Alves, respectively. Still owned by the founding family, all are headquartered in Bradenton.

In 1915, 22-year-old Robert M. Beall Sr. opened a dry goods store in Bradenton, Florida. Investing his entire savings in merchandise, he used empty wooden packing crates as his first display tables. Because the store sold nothing for more than one dollar he called his store The Dollar Limit. Following World War I inflation, in 1920 Beall renamed his store The Five Dollar Limit. Business prospered during the Florida land boom of the 1920s; in a few years Beall purchased a vacant lot facing the courthouse and erected a new modern department store, which opened for Christmas, 1924. The Florida boom ended in a few years, only to be followed by the stock market crash. Hard hit and unable to pay his debts, Robert Beall lost his business to the bank. He stayed on as manager through the depression. By 1944 he had saved enough to repurchase it. For many years the store lived up to its motto,"We Outfit the Family for Less".

After the war, Robert was joined by his son E.R. as junior partner. They christened the business Bealls Department Store. Air conditioning and an influx of new residents in the '50s began to transform the face of Florida. In 1956, the second Bealls Department store was opened in Bradenton's Westgate Shopping Center and a third store followed in 1961 at the Venice Shopping Center in Venice, Florida. E.R. developed the new chain while his father ran the original downtown store until just prior to his death in 1979.