Sur La Table, Inc sells appliances, bakeware, cookbooks, housewares, specialty foods, and other goodies for professional and home chefs from about 80 stores in some 30 states, a website, and catalogs that make foodies drool. For customers who aren't sure how to best use the Le Creuset casserole dish, Cuisinart food processor, or Chef's Choice waffle maker, the company offers cooking classes and cookbook signing events in many of its stores. Founded in 1972 at Seattle's famous Pike's Place Market, Sur La Table is owned jointly by the Behnke family, including its chairman Carl Behnke, and private investor Freeman Spogli.

Anaheim Patio & Fireside is a casual furniture retailer with three store locations in the state of California selling outdoor furniture (aluminum, wicker, wood), barbeque grills and accessories (briquettes, brushes), hearth products (gas logs, ranges, stoves), and related patio accessories (chair covers, chairs and rockers, swings). The company also offers related services such as installation of outdoor fire places and barbecue grills, as well as repair of patio items. General manager Bonnie Richins is the daughter of Anaheim Patio's founders.

Grupo Gigante has the tiendas SuperPrecio discount convenience store format and largest retail brand, with more than 180 locations in central and northern Mexico. It also sells furniture at about half a dozen Home Store locations in Mexico and, through a long-term joint venture, Office Depot de Mexico, it offers office supplies at roughly 200 Office Depot stores in Mexico, Columbia, and Central America. Catering largely to families, Gigante runs more than 80 Toks casual dining restaurants and coffee shops. Gigante Grupo Inmobilario is the firm's real estate development arm.

SmartLabs brings high-tech comforts home with the push of a button. Its SmartLabs Technology unit creates electronic automation and remote control products for lighting, security systems, theater equipment, and other home management systems. The SmartLabs Design division designs and produces its INSTEON wireless technology line, as well as offers original equipment manufacturing services. Reaching consumers in some 130 countries, SmartLabs' Smarthome business markets more than 5,000 electronic home improvement products online, by phone, and through catalogs. President and CEO Joe Dada founded the company in 1992.

Haggen showers shoppers in the Pacific Northwest with salmon, coffee, and other essentials. The area's largest independent grocer, Haggen operates 30-plus combination supermarkets throughout Washington and Oregon. Most upscale Haggen Food & Pharmacy stores feature specialty departments, while the TOP Food & Drug outlets emphasize savings; however, both may offer such amenities as Starbucks coffee shops, Blockbuster video outlets, or child-care centers. To keep up with the Joneses of supermarket fame and fortune, Haggen partnered with ShopEaze.com (an e-commerce service provider), which failed, leaving Haggen without an online store. Brothers and co-chairmen Don and Rick Haggen own the chain.

Steinhoff UK Retail wants it customers to fill their homes with furniture with its help. Formerly named Homestyle Group until 2007, the company is one of Britain's largest furniture retailers. Its furniture division, Harveys Furnishing Group, operates about 170 Harveys: The Furniture Store shops throughout the UK. Its beds division operates Bensons Beds (the UK's largest bed retailer with 220 stores and 15,000 branded beds), Bed Shed (more than 50 stores primarily in Scotland), and Sleepmasters (with nearly 120 retail sites in the UK). Steinhoff Europe AG, a subsidiary of Steinhoff International Holdings (SIH), took the company private in 2007.

Color Spot gives a green thumbs up to more than 2,000 retail and commercial customers in the Western and Southwestern United States. The wholesale nursery distributes high quality bedding plants, vegetables, herbs, shrubs, premium blooming plants, ground cover, and ornamentals. Color Spot also provides in-store merchandising, product displays, promotional planning, and product reordering services to customers such as Home Depot, Lowes, K-Mart, Rite-Aid, Wal Mart, Kroger, Longs and many more.The Color Spot family is committed to excellence and the success of its customers and the consumers of their products. Success is built upon exceptional quality products, superior customer service and merchandising, and excellent distribution systems. Color Spot Nurseries has the largest and most experienced sales and marketing team in the industry. Our commitment to quality runs throughout every facet of our business, from planting, to insect and disease control, to customer service and order entry, to trucking and delivering. Color Spot is truly "growing for its customers," operating 10 production facilities throughout California and Texas.

DOTS has plans for continued national expansion, including California eventually. Ultimately, DOTS hopes to reach 1,000 stores nationwide. DOTS operates more than 400 value-priced women's clothing and accessory stores in some 25 states, mostly along the East Coast and in the Midwest. The stores, which target female shoppers between the ages of 18 and 45, sell low-priced fashion apparel and accessories for the junior, misses, and plus-size markets. The fast-growing company has been opening new stores in some big markets, including Texas and Georgia.

Spain's Cortefiel has something for everyone. Its five main store brands -- Cortefiel, Pedro del Hierro, Springfield, Women'secret, and Milano -- target young men, older men, young women, cost-conscious women, and high-end clothing. Cortefiel operates more than 1,400 stores, mostly under the Cortefiel and Springfield banners. Although the retailer operates in about 50 countries, Spain is home to more than half of the group's stores. It owns its European stores and franchises locations in Asia, the Americas, and the Middle East. The Hinojosa family had controlled Cortefiel before CVC, PAI Partners, and Permira acquired more than 86% of it in 2005.

Since its founding in 1889, the firm has developed the boysenberry along with varieties of peaches, oranges, roses, and the patented Hotbiscus Hibiscus and Wadda Tomato. In addition to its 100-acre nursery, the company has about 30 retail garden centers that operate under the Armstrong banner in Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as about 15 Pike Nurseries locations in Atlanta and North Carolina. Its stores carry shrubs, flowering plants, fruit trees, and vegetables, as well as an assortment of dirt, planters, and garden tools. Company employees own 100% of Armstrong Garden Centers. It's strange to think that any company "invented" a fruit, but Armstrong Garden Centers does just that.

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