EL DORADO — Jim and Beth Robinson opened La Bella Gourmet Gifts & Delicatessen in August of 1986, and purchased the old Samples building in 1992.
The shop has been serving great food around for more than two decades, and started as a grinder and pizza shop.
“I'm a native of El Dorado, but my family moved to Hartford, Conn., when I was a child,” Jim Robinson recalls.
He was an electrician in Connecticut, but returned to Arkansas in 1976.
“While I was an electrician, I used to drive a service truck, and I had a favorite sandwich shop,” Robinson recalls. “I would get two sandwiches every day and eat on them in between calls.”
Remembering the sandwich shop from New England, Robinson decided to go into business for himself.
La Bella offers a wide variety of specialty foods from various parts of the European continent and traditional American cuisines.
When he first inhabited the former Samples building, there was silver aluminum siding on the outside of the building with turquoise trim.
“Turquoise was the color of the day,” Robinson says. “I still remember those turquoise Thunderbirds.”
Robinson remembers buying a transistor radio, on credit, from Samples when he was 12 years old.
“I was working for the summer at a part-time job, and I remember paying $5 a week until I paid off the $20.”
The radio came with a black leather case and an earplug, and Robinson recalled listening to it while riding his bicycle around town.
Tuning the radio was not a hazard when riding a bicycle, mostly because there were only two stations in town.
“KELD was the old people's station, and KMDS, 1290 AM, was the young people's station,” Robinson recalls, laughing.
“They expanded to two or three buildings, including back here on Cedar Street,” Beth Robinson recalled of Samples. “They had everything — clothing, electronics, everything you can think of — they were really ahead of their time. It just goes to show what you can do when you have money and good ideas.”