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Chuck Williams, founder of Williams-Sonoma kitchen stores, dies at 100

 
Mr. Williams opened his original shop in a converted hardware store.
Mr. Williams opened his original shop in a converted hardware store.
Published Dec. 6, 2015

Chuck Williams, the founder of the Williams-Sonoma kitchen tools empire who introduced Americans to the concept of upscale cookware, died of natural causes Saturday at his home in San Francisco. He was 100.

TV chefs Julia Child and James Beard may have introduced Americans to fine food, the conventional wisdom went, but it was Mr. Williams who sold them the equipment to make it at home.

His knives, copper pans and high-end pots first made gourmet cooking accessible to home cooks in the prosperity after World War II. He not only imported products previously unseen in U.S. kitchens, but he also worked with manufacturers to roll out such staples as KitchenAid stand mixers and Cuisinart food processors.

"I think he shaped the taste of all those who love to cook," Child told Newsweek in 1997. "In the early days of my show, the home chef couldn't buy any of the items I used in cooking. You had to buy them the next time you went to France. Chuck changed all that."

Today, there are more than 250 Williams-Sonoma locations selling a vast range of items including jewel-colored enamel cookware, cupcake mixes and wine glasses. It started modestly enough, when Mr. Williams opened the original store in 1956 in a converted hardware store in Sonoma, Calif.

He was born in Jacksonville, and his father moved the family to California.