Amid all the holiday glitter at Ace Barnes Hardware, a surprisingly militant note: Occupy Washtenaw County! (punctuation included). The sign at the checkout is a product of Think Local First and the small print invites us to shop locally.
West Stadium Blvd.
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Ace Hardware is a great place to buy local
Stadium Hardware is within spitting distance of Ace, and so long as you are shopping for something that both stores offer (e.g. Stadium does not sell kitchen gear), Stadium Hardware is by far the better choice.
Stadium’s customer service is top notch and they are a great supporter of our community.
I like both stores for various reasons. Last spring some snob was touting Stadium Hardware though, he said, “You won’t find tiki lamps at Stadium!,” next day I walked in there and tiki lamps were the first thing I saw. You can’t beat our local Ace for kitchen stuff, they have a good garden center too, I’ll have no hand in knocking them. I like Stadium for raw goods, nuts & bolts, hardware cloth, this and that — I just like to go in and wander. Recently I wanted some specialty gear, and when I went looking online, it would have cost over $2000 from a specialized retailer, but I went to Stadium and wandered around for an hour, and found what I needed to cobble the thing together myself for $35 — I appreciate that.
Buying local is silly in this context though, these are hardware stores, not groceries. Buy local, as in, go to these stores and buy there, instead of Amazon Dot Com. Support your local brick and mortar store, which I do as much as I can. Some places are fooling around though, if I come to your store to buy something I’ve bought there before, don’t suddenly not stock it, and tell me you can order it — after I’ve wasted my time I’ll just go home and order it myself if you’re going to pull that kind of gambit.
If you really want to buy great Ann Arbor hardware, look into Radius Gardening Tools. I bought one of their bulb planters last year that was beyond excellent. Military grade hardware, this thing will last forever — I had a different brand from a local store, it looked the same, but snapped in half after using it an hour. These Radius tools are the best, and I’m no shill, I didn’t know it was local until I got it home and looked at the label. If I’m buying garden tools in the future, I’m sticking to this brand.
I shop at both hardware stores, though Ace is my fallback and my husband goes to Stadium for just that right part. The Radius tools are available at two local stores. I don’t suggest that one should be slavish about buying at local brick and mortar stores, but we all benefit not just because it circulates dollars in our community but also because we retain the ability to shop for things in person. There has been a consolidation of big-box stores lately and the places to shop for a wide variety of items have been diminishing. An in-person shopping experience, especially if you can find a friendly human to help, beats the online every time. I hate to lose that capability.
Can’t ignore Carpenter Brother’s either, that was the only place in town I could find “Super Triple Phosphate” this year.