On any given day, K. Hall & Sons Produce buzzes with a steady stream of vehicles and pedestrians as greetings and banter fly around the deli counter, in the grocery aisles and at the registers.
“How you doin’ baby?” the cashiers sing out. “You doin’ all right?” There’s more to the company than this corner market — through the decades, K. Hall & Sons has developed a roster of wholesale and institutional clients all over Central Arkansas — but here, as the narrow aisles and smells from the kitchen tell you, not much has changed.
For one thing, everyone at K. Hall & Sons is family, literally and practically. David Hall, general manager, can’t place an exact number on it but somewhere around a dozen siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews work representing four generations, some every day, others a few hours on weekends or during school breaks. Even some of the customers get the family treatment.
“From the very beginning it was basically my dad and later on my mom and then everybody kind of pitched in when it got off the ground,” Hall said. “It’s just one of those things as they were coming up, working really wasn’t an option. Everybody had to come and help.”
David, the youngest of seven, has been on the clock virtually since his father, the late Knoxie Hall Sr., hauled a truckload of produce from the family farm and set up Hall’s Produce on this very spot.
“When he first started none of this was in here, none of this was even enclosed,” Hall said. “[Dad] just had tables set up out there. There was no power to the building, no gas or anything. It was just an old gas station he was renting. He’d come in the morning and set up his tables just like you’d see someone selling by the side of the road. He’d sell produce until it got dark.”
Knoxie and Estella Hall eventually passed operational responsibility to David, and he expanded the business with the help of his sons and his nephew Jonathan. Growing the company didn’t come without sacrifices and the hours are still long. But each day solidifies the store’s vital role in the life of the community.
“I’ve seen so many kids come through here. I’ve watched them grow up,” David Hall said. “There’s kids come in here now that when they first came in couldn’t see over the counter. It’s done me well to see some of those kids now, the ones that have prospered and done well. One young guy in particular, he’s an attorney now. And they always come back. That means a lot to me.”
1974 Knoxie Hall Sr. set up Hall’s Produce in an outdoor stand at an empty rented gas station at 1900 Wright Avenue. He’d later purchase the building for a market, managed by his wife and family matriarch, Estella Hall.
1984 Youngest sons Curtis and David Hall formulate plans to expand business operations, forming a partnership and changing the name to K. Hall and Sons Enterprises.
2006 Accelerating institutional and wholesale business keeps the company’s fleet of delivery trucks in circulation seven days a week serving restaurants, schools and other clients throughout central Arkansas.
2016 Knoxie and Estella Hall and the Hall family are inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame in Little Rock.