Bob and Laura Hargrove shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Hi Bob and Laura, thank you so much for joining us today. We’re thrilled to learn more about your journey, values and what you are currently working on. Let’s start with an ice breaker: What is a normal day like for you right now?
We come into the shop and get to work getting the store ready to open and feed the outside stray kitties that hang around. After we are open, we usually spend a little time chatting about jobs we are working on and deadlines coming up while sipping our coffee. If our cats came to work with us, we spend some time playing with them. After that, we get to work at the bench creating! Occasionally, we will get up and help a client who is coming into get a piece made so we will chat and design with them before heading back to the bench! At the end of the day, we shut the store down and if we need to, we will stay late and work more on some of the custom pieces we are creating – we do this especially around the holidays.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Bentons is a custom jewelry and art gallery that has been a staple in Salado, TX since the 1970’s. As a charming artistic village, Salado is full of creatives making their art right here in town and our shop is no exception. We are owned by a husband and wife team, Bob and Laura Hargrove and we create one-of-a-kind, custom fine gold and platinum jewelry using techniques like lost wax casting and forging. One of the things that makes our store unique is that the people who craft the custom pieces are the same people who design with the client when they come into the store! It is extremely important to us to get to know the client so we can create something for them that they will truly love. We also believe it is important that folks trust their jeweler and our integrity is the most important aspect to our business. We never want anyone who comes in to feel like they are walking into a pretentious store – we keep things relaxed and never pressure anyone. One of the things we do a lot more often these days with gold being at or near an all-time high, is take jewelry our clients no longer wear or that they inherited but isn’t their style and take the raw materials to create something new and fresh! This new piece still has the sentimentality of the previous piece but with a new design that our clients love to wear! We are currently working on our 2025 Holiday Collection that will be coming out on November 1st and we can’t wait to show all the details of these amazing pieces!
Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. Who taught you the most about work?
Jim Benton is the founder and previous owner of our store and Bob started working here when he was 16 as a summer job for gas money. He continued to work for Jim throughout the rest of high school and college and by the time Bob graduated from college, Jim had taught him the techniques to make fine gold jewelry. He would also teach how to run a successful business by demonstrating consistency, integrity, and hard work. When we bought the store from Jim, it was important to us that we keep the legacy that Jim fostered and grow the business from there. We stand on the shoulders of giants and Jim played a huge part in the success of business then and still plays a huge part to this day with his advice and friendship.
If you could say one kind thing to your younger self, what would it be?
I (Laura) would tell myself to always be open to new opportunities. I started my career as a research scientist and professor and always thought I would be in that field. In 2018, my research job was moving to another state and we had to make the decision to buy Bentons from Jim or move to Indianapolis with my career. That meant leaving a career that I loved and learning an entirely new industry and set of skills! There was huge learning curve but I am absolutely loving creating jewelry and growing a business with Bob! I am so glad that I took that chance at a completely new-to-me opportunity!
Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. Is the public version of you the real you?
Other than the fact that we will probably be in pajamas when in our home, Bob and I are the same people in private or in public. We would find it too exhausting to try to be someone else when we are at the shop or talking to clients. And this also goes back to integrity being the most important aspect of our business to us. If we were pretending to be someone that we truly aren’t, how could we honestly tell ourselves that we are running our business with integrity? When people come into Bentons, we want them to feel like they are coming into a place with friends, not sales people.
Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
Bob and I both hope that people will still talk about the jewelry we created for them or their parents. We know that most of our jewelry will outlast us and we want folks to look at a piece we made years prior with the same excitement they had when they picked it up from our store. We want our brand to be synonymous with high quality craftsmanship and integrity so we hope that is what folks say about us when we are no longer here – hopefully many years from now.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.bentons.net
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bentonsjewelry/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bentonsjewelry
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/bentons-salado
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@bentons9278
- Other: tiktok: @bentonsjewelry
Image Credits
Images were taken by Jess Mall of J.Genevieve
