El Dorado Furniture Opens Calle Ocho Boulevard The Eighth El Dorado Store Marks the Company’s Return to its Initial Miami Site

Furniture World Magazine

El Dorado Furniture officially opens its eighth retail store, Calle Ocho Boulevard, on February 1st on the same block where the company initially started in 1967, in the heart of Little Havana. “The opening of Calle Ocho Boulevard has a special, almost reverent, meaning to us,” said Manuel Capó, founder and chief executive officer of El Dorado. “Thirty-six years ago, I started a small store with two of my sons on the corner of this block. Now the Boulevard extends over the whole block. This is a great source of pride for us: it is testament to our family’s unity and hard work – and to the devotion and hard work of the 700 hundred employees who join us to make up the whole El Dorado family.” The Calle Ocho El Dorado Boulevard capitalizes on the thematic environment that has proven such a major success for the store: A central main street, called the Boulevard complete with park benches and street lights, opens into individual specialized furniture stores featuring various styles of furniture collections and accessories. The Calle Ocho Boulevard of 40,000 square feet features 12 stores. Featured showrooms include: the Gallery, showcasing sumptuous furniture collections; Carlo Perazzi, El Dorado’s signature contemporary furniture collection; and the Pirate’s Cove that displays furniture specially designed for kids, among others. The new Boulevard store will generate 60 new jobs in Miami-Dade County. El Dorado will celebrate the grand opening of Calle Ocho Boulevard with weeklong festivities. The celebration includes a series of previews on January 23rd, 28th and 30th, for city and county elected officials; business associates and furniture industry associates respectively. The January 30th event features the official ribbon-cutting ceremony to which all media is invited. The event takes place from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. The store will officially open to the public on February 1st at 10:00 a.m. The Calle Ocho Boulevard is located at 2475 SW 8th St.. The telephone number is 305-642-4355. El Dorado Furniture is the largest Hispanic-owned retail enterprise in the U.S. Founded in 1967, El Dorado Furniture owns and operates eight retail stores in Miami Dade and Broward Counties, Fla. Its projected sales for 2003 are $150 million. It is wholly owned by the Capó family: father Manuel and his seven sons hold executive positions at the corporation. For information on El Dorado Furniture, please call (305) 624-9700 or visit [www.eldoradofurniture.com]. Aboout El Dorado Furniture, wholly owned by the Capó family, opened its 8th store February 1, at 2475 SW Calle Ocho (8th St.), on the site of the original store that opened in 1967, in Little Havana. About 6,000 people visited the store during its grand opening weekend. Its 40,000 square foot showroom, joins the 480,000 square feet of retail space the company has in its 7 other stores throughout Miami-Dade and Broward. A ninth store will be opening in the fall of 2003. El Dorado is owed by Manuel Capó, family patriarch, and his SEVEN sons, all of whom have key management positions in the company.(And no, the seven sons are not in search of seven brides. That's long been taken care of: 10 grandchildren join fathers and grandfather in the company enterprise, clocking in and out every day they come to work.) Why is El Dorado worthy of note? Some of the facts: The company projects $150 MM in sales this year and plans two new stores in the next two years, all in the midst of the economic turndown. There may be 25 Capós on the payroll, but the company employs 700 people in total, making it a solid contributor to South Florida's economy. In a traditionally family-owned industry, El Dorado has resisted the siren song of the chain operators. It's paid off for them: They are the 47th largest furniture retailer in the whole country; certainly, the largest Hispanic-owned. Pedro Capó, El Dorado’s corporate secretary and COO, is this year's President of the National Home Furnishing Association, the first Hispanic to hold this important position in the 83-year-old trade organization. Manuel Capó and 2 of his sons left Cuba in l966 on the family boat, the El Dorado. They made it to Mexico, then to Miami, where they opened the furniture store on Calle Ocho in l967. The rest of the family followed shortly thereafter. In 1967, the United States Small Business Administration gave Manuel a $10,000 loan to get the business off the ground. Talk about a worthwhile investment! Manuel's father before him had been in the furniture business in Cuba. Thus, the grandkids are the 4th generation in the business.