El Dorado Furniture celebrated the opening of its first store on Florida’s Gulf Coast here with a party Thursday night that drew some 500 suppliers, community leaders, consumers and other guests.

The 65,000-square-foot store on Cleveland Avenue, which features the latest version of the Top 100 company’s Boulevard downtown streetscape concept, soft opened Nov. 1 and will grand open Saturday with live entertainment, food and $150 furniture gift cards for the first 150 families through the doors.

The festivities will continue the next day with leather ottomans going to the first 150 families. The Miami Gardens, Fla.,-based chain also will make a donation to the local nonprofit Children’s Advocacy Center of Southwest Florida.

When El Dorado announced plans for the store in 2012, the company projected annual sales from the showroom of $10 million to $12 million.

It hasn’t disclosed initial sales figures, but “so far the store has been doing great,” said Robert Capo, chief marketing officer.

Usually, a soft opening gives new employees an opportunity to practice in a quieter-than-normal store environment, he said, but at the Fort Myers store, traffic has been steady even without advertising, as if El Dorado had been in the market for a much longer time.

In a way, it has been on the Gulf Coast for years. While the retailer has only now opened a physical store here, it has been delivering to the market for more than 15 years. That includes customers here who have been visiting El Dorado’s Southeast Florida locations and more recently, those shopping the retailer online.