The present article has the purpose of critically reflecting on the hegemonic notion which defines what a family enterprise is in the Administration context, taking the nuclear and patriarchal families as a reference. Based on the anthropological theoretical contribution, we found the most varied familiar procedures, which led us to think through the familiar dynamics and, as a result, the familiar enterprises as regards to the inherent values to these models. The ethnographical method, the techniques of the systematic and participating observation, and the stories of life, led way to the discovery of a typically local empirical universe: the stores of the Otávio Rocha overpass, downtown in Porto Alegre. For the initial phase of the research, a gift store, a flower shop, a barbershop and a secondhand bookstore where chosen, where we tried to interview all the family members encountered working in the stores. The results identify families and family businesses that bond pre-modern family values with the contemporary and modern arrangements, besides revealing family and businesses behaviors according to the society values.