TRADE NAMES: Sally Bell’s: a taste for tradition

SLIDESHOW: Inside Sally Bell’s Kitchen

Lawrence Chavis stops by Sally Bell's Kitchen at least three times each week.

"I wanted some homemade food, not fast food," said Chavis, who discovered the Southern eatery on West Grace Street near Virginia Commonwealth University's academic campus about 20 years ago.

Chavis has tasted almost all of the items at Sally Bell's. His favorites include the potato salad, deviled eggs, country-ham sandwiches and pineapple cupcakes.

"All of their choices are delicious," he said.

Lisa Caperton of Richmond agrees. "When I went to the kitchen, it was charming. It was like taking a step back in time."

Sally Bell's, which traces its roots to the early 1920s, remains a Richmond tradition, with everything made fresh daily.

"We even make our own mayonnaise and salad dressing," said Martha Jones, one of the current co-owners.

Customers range from individuals to corporations, from urban to suburban patrons. Its busiest times coincide with the holidays, graduations and tailgating.

"During the holidays, we have some people who have said they stood in line for two hours for potato salad," Jones said.

"Our family comes in and peels potatoes all night, and we still run out of potato salad," she said. "Some people get frustrated. We can only make so much because we make it that morning. We'd rather have the quality than the quantity."

Jones has made some updates to the kitchen, but the business still uses a few original stoves from the 1930s and 1940s.

The recipes are handwritten in a small, old green binder.

"We're still using [the co-founder's] original recipes," she said. "They are very labor-intensive. For example, when we make chicken salad, we boil and pick our own chickens."

Sally Bell's most popular sellers are box lunches, with chicken-salad sandwich and potato salad heading the list.

Jones added a delivery service 10 years ago and catering two years ago. "We wanted to reach more people," she said. "We go anywhere."

Even though the company's corporate business decreased slightly during the past year in the recession, its cupcake sales have increased by 10 percent, and potato-salad sales have increased by 5 percent.

Tricia Carroll of western Henrico County has been buying food at Sally Bell's for nearly three years.

Her children love to see their mom walk through the door with cupcakes from Sally Bell's.

"Even my boss told me that when she was little, if she got good grades, her mom would come home with a Sally Bell's box with a cupcake for her," Carroll said. "Everyone I know loves it."

Sally Bell's Kitchen dates to 1924, when Sarah "Sallie" Cabell Jones and Elizabeth Lee Milton opened Sarah Lee Kitchen, using parts of their names for the shop's moniker.

Five years later, Milton left the business, with Sarah Jones buying her out to become the sole owner. In 1959, the name changed to Sally Bell's after a dispute was settled with the owners of Chicago-based Kitchens of Sara Lee.

"Sally was slang for Sarah, and Bell came from the Cabell name," said Martha Jones, who started managing Sally Bell's in 1985.

Sarah Jones sold the shop to her nephew, Hunter Jones, and his wife, Marcyne, in the late 1960s.

A few years later, Hunter Jones signed the business over to his five children, one of whom was Martha Jones' husband, Scott.

"Scott turned his ownership over to me," she said, adding that his brothers and sisters also own the business.

Caperton said she is hooked on Sally Bell's. She buys food there whenever she has a special occasion.

"It's part of the heart and soul of our family celebrations," she said.