Glen Park Hardware is under new management as of February 11, 2024.
Neighbors say the store, a mainstay of the neighborhood, has been noticeably scant on stock for more than a year.
There has been a Glen Park Hardware store in the space at 685 Chenery Street for 61 years. Ed Josephson owned the store from 1963 until 1978, when it was purchased by Hal and Susan Tauber, who ran it for 38 years, retiring in 2016.
Glen Park Perspectives, a precursor to the Glen Park News, featured a profile of Ed Josephson upon his retirement (see p. 8).
The business was then purchased by Aaron and Simar Esquivel. At first Aaron frequently worked in the store and was available for questions and to talk with customers. Over the course of the last few years, he spent less time there and the amount and variety of inventory in the business diminished. There has also been turnover in staffing. Some of the of newer workers appeared to have little training about the business or what was available in the store.
Glen Park Hardware is now owned by a limited liability corporation called Rikbull LLC.
A Glen Park News reporter interviewed Lisa, who declined to give her last name, who described her role as the project manager. She will be at the hardware store on Saturdays.
Lisa told the News that she recognizes the store hasn’t maintained its full potential and will work to bring it up to standards that will serve the needs of the neighborhood.
Now, if the store is out of stock on an item, Lisa says, “You have to get in your car or take an Uber or Lyft to go to a bigger store, so having this hardware store is like having a quick stop–it’s got a little of everything.” She wants to bring it back to what it once was and more.
There are plans to do some physical improvements in the coming months but for now the emphasis will be in beefing up their inventory, she said. However, a new store sign will be going up.
This week a black coating has been put on the bottom half of the store’s windows. It is a security measure; Lisa says she knows of two instances in which a window of the hardware store had been smashed.
“I’ve never been here before now, I didn’t know anything about Glen Park,” she says. “I’m from the Peninsula but this is like a totally different world. People are coming in just to say ‘Hi,’ which is nice.”