Hardware Soft Sell Corner Stores Where Service Is Friendly And Prices Are Competitive Hold Their Own Against Giant Warehouses

While competition heats up between Eagle Hardware and Home Depot on the North Side, neighborhood hardware stores — where clerks really do greet customers by name — are alive and thriving.

“I try to sneak in here, but they always see me,” said Dottie Green, laughing about attentive employees at her Shadle neighborhood store.

“They have anything and everything here,” she said.

It seems everyone has a favorite neighborhood hardware store.

There’s crisp, bright River Ridge, country-style Nine Mile Feed and Hardware, Suncrest Hardware and Garden, and a half-dozen others on the North Side alone.

The grandpa of them all is triangle-shaped Stewart’s, a fixture at the corner of Northwest Boulevard and Monroe Street since 1912.

It’s Spokane’s oldest hardware store in one location.

Instead of “more of everything” the neighborhood stores carry three or four of everything.

At Ash & Rowan Ace Hardware, the shelves overflow with variety.

There’s everything from nuts and bolts to curling irons and potato ricers. Lawnmowers are lined up on the sidewalk outside.

Everyone who enters is greeted with a cheery “hi” and help finding exactly what they need.

On a Thursday morning, the store is humming. Saturday mornings, customers are waiting anxiously outside for Cindy Smith to unlock the doors at 8 a.m.

One man starts talking the minute he steps through the door.

“Do you remember what size belt I bought the last time I was in here?” he asks.

Owner Pat Cates smiles and leads him to the back of the store. They return a few minutes later with the small rubber belt.

She chats and rings the cash register simultaneously.

“Hi Bob. Hey, did you hear Kristi had her baby?” All the details follow, as she hands back change to the second customer.

Recently, an elderly woman came in asking advice on refinishing her front door. Cates helped her select the supplies and explained how to do the project. The woman still seemed confused.

On her way home from work, Cates drove past the woman’s house to see how she was doing. She stopped to help. Then went back the next night to finish up.

Competition from mega-hardware warehouses helped force out mid-size stores, like Ernst, but doesn’t seem to bother the neighborhood businesses.

“When Home Depot opens we’ll feel it for a couple of weeks,” said Cates. “Everyone is curious. Then they’ll come back to us.”

Most corner hardware stores are independently owned, but belong to national co-ops like Ace, True Value, or Do It Best.

Working together, they keep prices competitive and are able to afford splashy advertising like the big guys. But they still keep the small-scale personal service that brings their customers back.

Cates has owned the store for 10 years; most of her employees started around the same time.

Knowing the customers and their needs is part of the secret for success at the small stores.

At River Ridge Hardware on the corner of Garland and Driscoll, owner Brian Poirier is constantly working on new ways to give his customers a better store.

“We have to reinvent the way we do business all the time,” he said. “We are very customer-driven.” The store is bright with orange and yellow signs, shelves are neatly arranged.

“We will survive if we listen to our customers,” he said.

Customers tell Poirier they want convenience. They don’t want to drive around huge, crowded parking lots or wait in long lines.

“People are so busy they need to get in and out fast,” he said.

River Ridge carries all the basics needed to fix and maintain a home, like the other stores. But they also have a garden center and a custom picture-framing service.

“We carry most of everything,” he said. “We try to keep prices low all the time.”

River Ridge has been on the corner about 10 years. It was the anchor of the nearby River Ridge Shopping Center for 30 years before that.

Kathe Johnson worked at the original store while in high school.

“The neighborhood hasn’t changed. They are the same customers I helped 25 years ago,” she said. “There is a lot of loyalty.”

Customers say they come in for the expertise and personal attention they don’t find at bigger stores.

It’s the smiles that have kept Gary Bottler coming back for 15 years.

“I go out of my way to come here,” he said. “Their prices are right in line with everyone else’s. They are nice and everyone is knowledgable. It’s the people.”

Stewart’s True Value Hardware, all 2,500-square-feet of it, could be tucked into a small corner of Home Depot. But magically, Stewart seems to have most everything customers need.

Mike and Daun Czechowski have owned the business since 1982. Mike’s dad owned it five years before him.

“We’re about as mom and pop as you get,” said Daun Czechowski.

They know everything about the surrounding neighborhood of homes built before the Great Depression.

They carry hard-to-find items and old-style fixtures to help owners maintain the older homes - things like catchers for screen doors made before pneumatic hinges were common.

Like the other stores, there’s no lumber department, sinks, cabinets or major appliances.

But for the homeowner who needs a bag of nails, the bins are full. “They come here for the basics or things they’ve forgotten,” said Mike Czechowski.

The wooden bins are built around ancient iron radiators that still work and are bolted to the hardwood floors. The Czechowski’s have no intention of trading them for more modern fixtures.

Although the busy intersection and unique brick building help attract those just passing by, Czechowski said most of his customers come from within a two-mile radius of the store. And most of them are regulars who count on finding just what they need.

“We know our neighborhood and we know our neighbors,” said Czechowski.