On the way to the Ball jars, after safe passage through the houseplant jungle, there appeared before me an El Dorado of American kitsch — fuzzy, puffy slippers branded with the bright and familiar logos of junk food and drink: Cheetos, Cheez-Its, Oreos, Mountain Dew and more.
The slippers were on a revolving display rack, right next to the houseplants, within a sponge-toss of the cleaning supplies, on the path to housewares, inside the Federal Hill ACE Hardware, 1214 Light St.
Holy Andy Warhol! This store has everything, just about!
It had the four-inch centerset gooseneck faucet I needed. It had the battery I needed for a key fob. It had colorful socks with print images of dogs. It had bee balm. It had reading glasses. It had a tabletop Big Green Egg for sale, and all kinds of grilling accessories. It had wide-mouth Ball jars, including the exquisite 64-ouncer, plus lids and bands.
It had Philips and flathead screwdrivers, hammers and hatchets and hoses, planters and plant food, Mount Royal soap products, lint brushes and light bulbs, serrated grapefruit spoons, Swing-A-Way high-torque can openers and scented candles.
I could go on, so I will.
On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, the store had Christmas trees and wreaths and red poinsettias, holiday candles and light bulbs, stuffed holiday animals and dog chews, fasteners and clothespins, ironing board covers and vacuum cleaners, trash bags and waste baskets, duct tape and masking tape and scotch tape, plastic storage bins and those things you put on the bottom of chair legs to keep them from scratching your hardwood floors.
That’s still a limited litany of products.
There’s something for everyone, and something someone somewhere needs on any given day. There’s also stuff — certain tools, for instance — you don’t need or would never use; you stand there and gawk at them as you might artifacts in the Walters.
The modern neighborhood hardware store is what it always was, only bigger, more eclectic and a lot more fun.
The one I grew up with in a small town never sold fuzzy slippers. It was strictly business for the handyman, carpenter, plumber or mechanic — worn wooden bins of nails and screws, nuts and bolts, drills and drill bits; ratchets and funnels and filters; paint and putty knives; maybe — maybe — a Zebco fishing reel or Wiffle Ball bat for the kids. The man who owned the store, Nate Cayleff, was a veteran who opened for business after World War II. The man was a wavy-haired sage, he knew everything. For 50 years, he helped thousands of people find their way through the challenges of homeownership.
Everyone in America has a memory of the independent or family-owned hardware store, even affection for them, because they offer (or offered, in the case of the long-gone) something you can’t find in a superstore, something familiar and reassuring and comforting. Whatever the chore or problem — patching a hole in drywall, refinishing a table or stopping a leak beneath the kitchen sink — you’re almost certain (99%) to find the answer in a hardware store. You’re apt to find an owner or employee who knows where everything is and what everything does. The people employed by local hardware stores must take pleasure in knowing that they are some of the most useful people on the planet — or, at least, in a city neighborhood or small town.
Speaking of that: The bonus at the ACE in Federal Hill is summarized in the sign over the entrance to the large space (a former martial arts studio) where they stock paint: “Employee-owned since 2021.”
It has been four years since Gina Schaefer and Marc Friedman, owners of a group of 13 hardware stores in the Baltimore-Washington area, sold their company, A Few Cool Hardware Stores (AFCHS), through an employee stock ownership plan. The sale included the Federal Hill, Canton and Waverly Ace stores. All 13 AFCHS stores are employee-owned now, with a 14th one on the way in Rockville, says CEO Craig Smith.
The original sale transferred 30% of the ownership to employees. The plan is to eventually get to 100%, says Smith, with stock allocation accruing over time, like a 401(K) plan, and with no costs to employees.
So, on top of all the other positive benefits to shopping in a local hardware store that offers thousands of products, including fuzzy slippers, there’s the personal service you get from vested employees. That’s a lot to like.
Dan Rodricks’ column appears weekly. He can be reached at djrodricks.com or via danrodricks.com
