The Local Hardware Store

[Notgrownup]

We have a few good stores around here, couple of ACE, a DO IT BEST (Lester’s ) and The Big Blue Store. They carry between then just about anything you can think of.

 

[zimman]

I am fortunate to have a local Fastenal store nearby. For the more traditional hardware store experience, the original Ace Hardware in downtown Placerville with its wood floors is hard to beat.
Although when I visit my local Ace Hardware, its like walking into Cheers... everyone knows my name. Not sure if that is a good thing or not!

We have one too but it's not open to the public. Crazy.
Zim

 

[jd_1138]

We have quite a few of those types of hardware stores close to me. I was in one last week looking for a nut for a wheel on my dolly. There was one also in the town I live in that got bought out. After it was sold it laid off all the folks who knew about hardware. Then they hired a bunch of younger guys that looked liked they were just out of high school.

I went in one day and I knew I was going to be in trouble there when I heard a couple of them talking about how they were going to leave and make the big bucks somewhere else. When one of the young geniuses came over I asked something like where they had the wingnuts. He looked at me like I was speaking some ancient Tibetan language created by female aliens from some distant planet that were going through some kind of existential crisis. After that I never went back to that one.

In my area they are still around but you do have to look for a good one. Most of the time they are Ace connected stores. That one reason when I set up our shop I made it look like an old store. I really miss the old mom and pop places, there use to be a lot of hardware ,car parts, lumberyards and similar. Sadly most are gone and we are stuck with big box stores that manage to be many times larger and has less of what I really need than the smaller mom and pop stores had.

Yep it's sad to lose a quality hardware store. There was a small local one that still had its original hardwood floors from 1890s. Over the years it had been an Ace, True Value and finally a Do-It affiliated. It had stock from all 3 chains in among the name brands.

Entire row (small though) of USA made quality hand tools. The manager was an older gentleman who knew tons about electrical, plumbing and carpentry. He helped me out a lot over the years when I was a young home dweller needing to fix or repair stuff. He had a 486 CPU desktop PC and an Okidata dot matrix printer to print out receipts. His inventory system must've worked great. He was never out of something I needed.

Sadly it's gone.

 

[reader2580]

There is a local hardware store called Beisswenger's. They were in a 1900's era building with multiple floors. They opened in 1930. They had everything, but you had to ask an employee to find most items because the place was not well organized. Dealing with power equipment was a pain as power equipment was in the basement. They moved into a brand new store built in the parking lot in 1988. I wasn't really old enough to have gone to the old store much.

I remember buying stuff for the church there and they let me charge it to the church account without any special permission from the church. The city did a big redevelopment in the early 2000s and bought the property. A new store opened in 2005 about two blocks from the old location. The store ran into financial trouble a few years ago. The owner was almost retirement age so he sold the store to someone who converted it to an Ace hardware store as the new owners own other Ace hardware stores.

 

[lowbucktruck]

Vintage Hardware Store / story:
More than a few years back, I was on a road trip up north to my hometown in Oregon. That town has shrunk; the True Value hardware store (family-owned) was still there and open, the Coast-to-Coast hardware store was long closed up (building still there). In that True Value I browsed a bit and found an OG pair of 10WR Vise Grip pliers (the original Petersen Vise Grips). The package was a little dusty, those pliers had been hanging there for some time.
I bought them on the spot, paid cash with a big grin.

 

[Burl]

I'm 73 years old, so yes I do remember the traditional old hardware stores. I grew up in a small town but there were a couple ones, even before the Ace stores, etc. Now even the Ace stores are gone, people just didn't support them, though they had very good products and prices. The big box stores finally won out.

 

[Death Row Dave]

One on the many little things that make America beautiful is still around . Great news to me . Thank you for sharing made my day

 

[ecotec]

These are my favorite kind of stores… where every trip is a treasure hunt. They have been disappearing fast around here (Detroit metro area).

We still have a few places to look around in, but they are often disappointing. The day everything has a SKU number, and all the products are just like every other store, is the day that they are not fun anymore.

I always wanted to go to one of those tools stores in Japan that are jam packed with high end tools.

 

[milkovich]

Behold the "Death Star" of small town hardware stores. The folks who work inside must work on commission or something because they actually try to help you and the only place I've ever had as good of service is Lee Valley (the pinnacle of tool buying). I live down the street from a Menard's (the least worst big box) but Hartville Hardware is a 25 minute drive and when you need a REAL tool that day, it's worth the drive. The other notable thing is they have a flea market on Saturdays I've bought some insane vintage tools at, and they have a "market" full of vendors that sell everything from grass fed beef to antiques. I've never gotten out of the complex in less than 3 hours and for less than a few Benjamin Franklins, but where else are you going to buy an M18 hedge trimmer, East Indian Rosewood turning blanks, custom cut steaks, and a bucket of rusty Petersen vise grips? Admittedly, the vibe isn't "cozy old store" anymore, but I'm old enough to remember the original building across the road from this complex, which very much was a "cozy" building that had been added on to and on to for decades before I was born.