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Archives | 1997
My Favorite Store: Randall Made Knives
By PADGETT POWELL

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In a vestigial orange grove in Orlando, Fla., is a converted cinder-block ranch-style house, now the factory and shop for Randall Made Knives, arguably the best -- handmade knives in the world.

Let us hazard that you do not need or want a best-known, maybe best handmade knife in the world. You merely want to see what all the flibber is about, maybe talk to Gary Randall, the proprietor, who bought this 60-year-old business from his father, Bo.

And something happens. You are in the presence of the unavoidably authentic. In a glass counter are gleaming things with elegant lines, which rather than suggesting weapons or tools of carnage fairly resonate with a solid, humming, jeweled integrity. This must be what it's like to be a bride in Tiffany's, you think, faintly out of breath and cotton-mouthy. A man appears who lets you handle the knives. He identifies them as to model number (there are 50 models) but otherwise says nothing salesmanlike. He does not have to. He does not, you eerily gather, even want to. You may not, in his view, you more eerily gather, qualify to own one of these things, somewhat as you might not qualify to own a Thoroughbred horse.

You leave with not one but three knives you do not need but must have -- the second a purer excess than the first, the third for your father-in-law and insisted upon by your 9-year-old daughter, also breathless in the face of this hard beauty. Your Visa receipt for $614.8O is in your happy pocket; the knives and their sheaths, wrapped up in white butcher's paper like sausages, lie on the car seat like diminutive but full citizens, emanating strong vapors of leather and tool steel and the promise of that which will not fail. Invincibility is in the air. You stop the car on your way off the property, get out and pick some oranges. No one will contest you. ''When Grampa dies,'' your daughter says, ''can I have his knife?''

I have lost count of the number of times I have left the Randall shop with a new knife "wrapped up in white butcher paper like a sausage" and even though I was only holding that new knife minutes before,I cannot wait to unwrap it again.
It's a great place to visit,even without a showcase full of knives to see and handle,all the people always have time to stop and say hello and make you feel welcome and valued,never seeming to rush your visit even though they are always busy,it's truly a unique experience and I never grow tired of my trips to that orange grove in Orlando.

I went one time to the United States. It is my favorite country and I am planning to go a lot more in the future. I went to Miami and Orlando BEFORE I ever heard of Randall... I was so close to the shop...I guess I have to wait a little longer to visit this magic place.

Nice article...captures the essence.

However, one "sour" note.

Leaving the shop not many years ago (when you could still make a left turn onto SOB Trail), my wife spied some oranges on one of the few remaining trees by the road and encouraged me to stop and pick one for her. I obeyed as usual in such situations, got back in the car with an orange, cut it for her and started to drive away when she let out a howl. It was one of what I later learned is called a bitter orange, apparently not meant for eating--as she learned that day.

This has been the only "sour" experience I know of anyone having at RMK!

Larry

The above article came from the New York Times...pundits of some persuasion might say it was the one time they got something right!

Here is the link: https://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/06/magazine/my-favorite-store-randall-made-knives.html

Note that the NYT will try to sell you a subscription when you go to their site.

As for Powell, here is a link about him: https://www.riverfronttimes.com/stlouis/southern-discomfort/Content?oid=2481301

And...here is a somewhat off-color article I ran across involving a Denmark Special: https://www.oxfordamerican.org/magazine/item/220-a-sausage-run-with-the-band

Larry

Nice story Larry!

A trip to the Randall Shop is in my bucket list.
Probably the last thing I do.

Wayne