Small Retail: They've got your hammer
By Dan Richman P-I REPORTER
There is no place in Seattle like Hardwick's, a University District hardware store offering what must be the largest selection of hammers under one roof, plus much (much) more.
Nor, given insurance requirements, fire codes and even conventional business practices and sensibilities, could such a place likely be created today.
"Corporate America couldn't have this," said co-owner Dean Hardwick, 54, a grandson of the store's founder, who runs it with his brother, William, 64. "It's too uncontrolled. It's organized chaos."
Every square inch of the 10,000-square-foot, 70-year-old store is crammed with stuff, including the walls leading up to the 16-foot-high ceilings. The aisles are narrow, to jam in more stock. The floors are creaky, the ceilings decrepit and the lighting unsubtle.
Hardwick's has both character and characters. It is a treasure trove for anyone with mechanical, plumbing or hardware-related problems to solve or projects to undertake. On a rainy day, it would be the perfect place to wander.
It's also priced reasonably, sometimes lower than conventional hardware stores and the giant warehouse stores.
"I figure my profit not necessarily on how much I can get but on how little I can sell it for," said Hardwick. "I try to figure out my margins that I've known, that we've been able to do to survive."
Marshal Stapp, 66, a professional house fixer, stopped by the store last week, as he frequently does.
"If I have a problem, I come and ask and they have the answer," he said. "I need hardware to fix 100-year-old houses. If I found it somewhere else, it would be a specialty, high-priced item. Here, I may have to look in the back of a drawer, and it may have been here for 10 years, but they have it."
The northernmost room, itself worth a special trip, is devoted to tools, hardware and painting supplies. The middle room has plumbing supplies, fasteners and housewares, and the southern room is filled with new and used furniture usually bought by university students.
Weekday customers are often tradespeople. On weekends "we get refugees from the big-box stores. The lines go all the way down the aisles," said manager Lloyd Anderson, 62, who's been on the job for 24 years. Many people visit from outside Seattle, and some from out of state.
Many tools come directly -- not through distributors -- from about 120 companies in the U.S., 15 in Europe, and others in Japan and Israel. And though the store may stock only a few examples of each item, it tends to carry full lines of products, not just the top-sellers.
"We feel we should have the stuff it takes to make everything go around," Anderson said. "That's why people have a better-than-average chance of getting what they need."
An Austrian hatchet with an offset head and handle, for hewing a log square, sells for $48. An entire case is filled with Japanese saws ($13-$40), which make straighter, narrower cuts than American versions.
Want chisels? The store has hundreds, separated into those used on a wood lathe, for hand carving and for carpentry. There's a big selection of brushes, from wire, horsehair, nylon, stiff tampico and stainless steel. Of course there's steel wool -- and also bronze, aluminum and stainless steel wools.
Distinctively designed gardening and bonsai tools, from Japanese makers Okatsune and Yoshida Hamono, would make great gifts. (Gift certificates are available.)
Levels, up to eight feet long, come from the U.S., Germany and Israel. People have been known to visit just to view the store's vast array of pliers.
Then there are the hammers. At least 170 kinds. A whole, long wall full. Rounded and canted-rectangular wooden mallets for hitting chisels, rawhide-ended lead models for power on delicate surfaces, tiny brass numbers for making jewelry on equally tiny anvils (sold elsewhere in the store), and models for planishing -- the process of smoothing sheet metal.
A beautifully crafted two-inch chisel from Henry Taylor of Sheffield, England, costs $87. A similar model from Stanley costs about $20. That's part of the store's philosophy.
"We have high-quality tools as well as really crappy tools, but we price them as they should be," said Anderson. "In a lot of stuff we'll have three or four grades of product, so someone trying to save a buck can do that."
Another philosophy is to buy from small companies often recommended by customers. Paint brushes from -- wait for it -- Paint Brush Corp., of Vermillion, S.D., cost $15 for a three-inch model. Competitors costing as little as $8 are "nowhere near the same quality," Hardwick said.
In the hardware department are at least 24 types of doorstops. Also present in profusion are glass and metal pulls and knobs suitable for the area's older houses.
Fasteners, including a big selection of hard-to-find stainless steel items, are sold individually, not in blister packs, so customers can make sure they're what's needed and can buy the required quantity.
There is no bar-coding and no scanners. All pricing is done by hand or on stickers provided by Do It Best Corp., which supplies about 10 percent of the store's stock. By the way, the store is still a swap shop, where customers can exchange desirable used items for credit or new merchandise.
Last year's gross sales were $1.7 million, and though the store no longer enjoys the 20 percent year-over-year revenue increases it had between 1976 and 1990, it has been profitable nearly every year.
It now supports the brothers and 12 full-time employees.
The Hardwicks own the property on which the store is built and have had many opportunities to sell at a large profit, all of which they have declined.
"It's worth hanging in just because we've been doing it and are still doing it," said Hardwick
None of the family's fourth generation have committed to taking over when their fathers retire. So if the store were to close?
"Oh, well. It's no big deal, really," Hardwick said. "It has to do with Catholic thought -- things come and go, but you just don't worry about that, because there's a bigger thing than yourself out there. That's just the way it works."
Nor, given insurance requirements, fire codes and even conventional business practices and sensibilities, could such a place likely be created today.
"Corporate America couldn't have this," said co-owner Dean Hardwick, 54, a grandson of the store's founder, who runs it with his brother, William, 64. "It's too uncontrolled. It's organized chaos."
Every square inch of the 10,000-square-foot, 70-year-old store is crammed with stuff, including the walls leading up to the 16-foot-high ceilings. The aisles are narrow, to jam in more stock. The floors are creaky, the ceilings decrepit and the lighting unsubtle.
Hardwick's has both character and characters. It is a treasure trove for anyone with mechanical, plumbing or hardware-related problems to solve or projects to undertake. On a rainy day, it would be the perfect place to wander.
It's also priced reasonably, sometimes lower than conventional hardware stores and the giant warehouse stores.
"I figure my profit not necessarily on how much I can get but on how little I can sell it for," said Hardwick. "I try to figure out my margins that I've known, that we've been able to do to survive."
Marshal Stapp, 66, a professional house fixer, stopped by the store last week, as he frequently does.
"If I have a problem, I come and ask and they have the answer," he said. "I need hardware to fix 100-year-old houses. If I found it somewhere else, it would be a specialty, high-priced item. Here, I may have to look in the back of a drawer, and it may have been here for 10 years, but they have it."
The northernmost room, itself worth a special trip, is devoted to tools, hardware and painting supplies. The middle room has plumbing supplies, fasteners and housewares, and the southern room is filled with new and used furniture usually bought by university students.
Weekday customers are often tradespeople. On weekends "we get refugees from the big-box stores. The lines go all the way down the aisles," said manager Lloyd Anderson, 62, who's been on the job for 24 years. Many people visit from outside Seattle, and some from out of state.
Many tools come directly -- not through distributors -- from about 120 companies in the U.S., 15 in Europe, and others in Japan and Israel. And though the store may stock only a few examples of each item, it tends to carry full lines of products, not just the top-sellers.
"We feel we should have the stuff it takes to make everything go around," Anderson said. "That's why people have a better-than-average chance of getting what they need."
An Austrian hatchet with an offset head and handle, for hewing a log square, sells for $48. An entire case is filled with Japanese saws ($13-$40), which make straighter, narrower cuts than American versions.
Want chisels? The store has hundreds, separated into those used on a wood lathe, for hand carving and for carpentry. There's a big selection of brushes, from wire, horsehair, nylon, stiff tampico and stainless steel. Of course there's steel wool -- and also bronze, aluminum and stainless steel wools.
Distinctively designed gardening and bonsai tools, from Japanese makers Okatsune and Yoshida Hamono, would make great gifts. (Gift certificates are available.)
Levels, up to eight feet long, come from the U.S., Germany and Israel. People have been known to visit just to view the store's vast array of pliers.
Then there are the hammers. At least 170 kinds. A whole, long wall full. Rounded and canted-rectangular wooden mallets for hitting chisels, rawhide-ended lead models for power on delicate surfaces, tiny brass numbers for making jewelry on equally tiny anvils (sold elsewhere in the store), and models for planishing -- the process of smoothing sheet metal.
A beautifully crafted two-inch chisel from Henry Taylor of Sheffield, England, costs $87. A similar model from Stanley costs about $20. That's part of the store's philosophy.
"We have high-quality tools as well as really crappy tools, but we price them as they should be," said Anderson. "In a lot of stuff we'll have three or four grades of product, so someone trying to save a buck can do that."
Another philosophy is to buy from small companies often recommended by customers. Paint brushes from -- wait for it -- Paint Brush Corp., of Vermillion, S.D., cost $15 for a three-inch model. Competitors costing as little as $8 are "nowhere near the same quality," Hardwick said.
In the hardware department are at least 24 types of doorstops. Also present in profusion are glass and metal pulls and knobs suitable for the area's older houses.
Fasteners, including a big selection of hard-to-find stainless steel items, are sold individually, not in blister packs, so customers can make sure they're what's needed and can buy the required quantity.
There is no bar-coding and no scanners. All pricing is done by hand or on stickers provided by Do It Best Corp., which supplies about 10 percent of the store's stock. By the way, the store is still a swap shop, where customers can exchange desirable used items for credit or new merchandise.
Last year's gross sales were $1.7 million, and though the store no longer enjoys the 20 percent year-over-year revenue increases it had between 1976 and 1990, it has been profitable nearly every year.
It now supports the brothers and 12 full-time employees.
The Hardwicks own the property on which the store is built and have had many opportunities to sell at a large profit, all of which they have declined.
"It's worth hanging in just because we've been doing it and are still doing it," said Hardwick
None of the family's fourth generation have committed to taking over when their fathers retire. So if the store were to close?
"Oh, well. It's no big deal, really," Hardwick said. "It has to do with Catholic thought -- things come and go, but you just don't worry about that, because there's a bigger thing than yourself out there. That's just the way it works."
IF YOU GO
Hardwick's Swap Shop
4214 Roosevelt Way N.E., Seattle
206-632-1203
ehardwicks.com
Monday-Friday: 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday: 9 a.m.-6 p.m.
Sunday: Closed
4214 Roosevelt Way N.E., Seattle
206-632-1203
ehardwicks.com
Monday-Friday: 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday: 9 a.m.-6 p.m.
Sunday: Closed
