The Handy Ace Hardware store in Tucker burned to the ground two Fridays ago. Traffic along Cowan Road the following day backed up as cars slowed and neighbors gawked — “people paying respects,” as a neighboring business owner put it.
Local restaurants began offering free lunches to Ace employees. Cakes and pastries were delivered to the store’s make-shift office across the street. A restaurant and a fitness studio planned fundraisers to assist displaced employees.
When a house burns, neighbors rally to help. Atypical, though, is the greater Tucker community’s response when the for-profit, fully insured hardware store went up in flames. The outpouring of grief and charity is testament to the bond between customers and employees, as well as what Ace as an institution means to the community.
In Ace’s ashes, though, customers also lamented a small business’ passing — albeit temporary, for it will rebuild — in an increasingly homogenized, sprawling, impersonal, big-box world.
“That Ace is different than most places. You walk in and people greet you and you get that small-town feel you wish you’d always have,” said Scott Ellenberger, general manager of the nearby Greater Good Barbecue, which held a fundraiser Thursday night for the hardware store’s employees. “It’s a more personalized model of business than what we’re used to.”
The fire’s cause remains unknown. Support from the community, which is becoming older, poorer and more diverse, does not. Tucker was long ago subsumed by Atlanta’s relentless expansion. It’s difficult today to find anything that speaks of the town’s identity.
Main Street downtown is undergoing a bit of an upgrade, with new sidewalks, lampposts and restaurants. But Lawrenceville Highway, the town’s main thoroughfare, wears the worn, strip-mauled look of every other Atlanta suburb.
Handy Ace Hardware was something different, a throwback to a calmer consumer time when shoppers lingered and clerks hovered. Housed since 2009 in an old bowling alley, Ace has been a part of the town’s fabric for a half century.
Its cluttered aisles practically sagged under the weight of every imaginable home- and hobby-repair tool and knickknack. Dust proved the glue that held it all together, including: nuts, bolts and screws in U.S. and metric sizes; grills and grommets; cut-to-order glass; Buck knives and Zippo lighters; and Carhartt work clothes (for women too).
“It’s what I’d call a community hardware store where they just had a lot of stuff on the aisles,” said Larry Goldfinger of Stone Mountain, who took pictures of Ace’s remains the other day. “You could go in and just walk around for an hour and three or four people would offer help. I don’t know how many times in Home Depot or Lowe’s I’d have to walk up and down aisles to find somebody.”
Need advice on paint colors? Ask Alicia. Something in lawn and garden? Phillip was your man. Trouble finding that ancient piece of plumbing? Handy Ace was the place where even credit could be arranged for long-time customers.
“We have stuff that may have dated to the 1930s and probably paid inventory tax on many, many times,” quipped store owner Harold Smith.
Harold is a third-generation Smith to work in the hardware business. Grandfather Harold opened Smith Hardware in Decatur in 1935. Today, father Joe and sons Harold and Matthew own Aces in Brookhaven, Dacula and, again some day, Tucker.
Ace Hardware is an international cooperative of stores, lumber yards and super-size home centers. Each of its 4,600 stores is independently owned and operated and competes against the plentiful offerings and low prices of Atlanta-based Home Depot and other home-improvement retailers.
It’s hard, though, to imagine somebody baking a cake for the employees of a burned-down Lowe’s as one long-time customer did last week. Or the placement of a poinsettia as tribute just beyond the police tape by another.
“You don’t expect that outpouring and response from the community for a business,” said Harold Smith. “Quite obviously our customers really dig our employees. It doesn’t seem normal. But I am absolutely taken aback by it.”
LongHorn Steakhouse, Roly Poly and Chick-fil-A brought lunch last week for Smith’s 28 employees (half of them full-time; Smith will try to find work for most of them during the rebuilding). Thursday’s fundraiser at Greater Good Barbecue was “packed, the craziest thing I’ve ever seen,” said Ellenberger, the general manager, adding that the raffle, silent auction and donation of 10 percent of the day’s restaurant sales raised several thousand dollars.
Patrice Peters, whose InclusiF fitness studio faces Ace across Cowan Road, plans a Zumba-thon fundraiser February 9th in the parking lot.
“It might be hard to solicit donations for a for-profit place, but we’ll see,” said Peters. “But it’s much more than a business. Their years of service are greatly appreciated. They’re people you can trust. I feel we’re helping friends out.”
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