This is one of a dying breed of mom-and-pop hardware stores...and it may not be here much longer, now that Queen Anne Avenue IS becoming very gentrified.
There is a very honest approach. If they may be a little wary, maybe it's because they know they are being squeezed out by all the "hip" stuff..
Had a key made here, the proprietress was decent and friendly. More like a local store in a Midwest town. A hardware store has been at this location since 1932...
Wish I had more opportunity to buy things here. Actually, I found some sticky fly paper here in 2 minutes' worth time, after having looked at Bartell's, etc. It was SO easy to find!
What's nice is, unlike the elephantine ("airplane-hangar") approach of Fred Meyer, Home & Depot, Eagle Hardware, etc., you have here a store of a MANAGEABLE size, not stuffed to the gills with "stuff" you'd never use. And I didn't feel I was lost in a huge mass of people, a feeling that makes me avoid, now, bigger stores (most of downtown included).
Unlike "bigger is better" mind-set of most American retail, here you DON'T have to wade through miles of aisles packed from bottom to top, desperately searching for "a needle in a haystack."
I don't need to choose from 20 different kinds of a generic commodity--in fact, I don't want it at all! I need "basics" more often than the VAST MAJORITY of the things I find in large chain-stores.
I always ENJOYED going to City People's Mercantile on 15th Ave. E. on Capitol Hill before it was replaced by a soul-less, boring, tacky (but practical, albeit, with low prices) Walgreen's.
Prices are very decent for such a small store.
Good selection of hardware, "preselected."
This "Mom-and-Pop" store is so idiosyncratic that the last time I went in I heard some wonderful Baroque (classical) music being played. Not muzak, and not your usual soul/rap or rock...They're definitely NOT doing things just to go along with the contemporary mass culture around them.
And it's of more use, to me at least, than the tanning salon or nail trimming outfit in the new "hip" office building next door.
Hooray for the Mom-and-Pop store!
Also recommend the hardware store on McGraw & 6th W. Queen Anne is lucky NOT to have dinosaur-style Eagle-inspired hardware stores.
For reference, see http://www.independentamerica.net/
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