A popular San Francisco hardware store is closing after 61 years as a cornerstone of the community.
Glen Park Hardware has served the upscale Glen Park neighborhood for more than sixty years, but struggled to maintain its identity after its longtime owners retired in 2016.
Since then, locals have reported high staff turnover and frequent stock shortages.
The closure took place only six months after the last owners took over.
Locals told KTVU this will leave a gap in services for the community.
Glen Park Hardware served the upscale Glen Park neighborhood for 61 years. Hal and Susan Tauber are pictured here in 1978, after purchasing the store that year—and then running it together for 38 years until 2016.
The store was opened in 1963 by Ed Josephson and closed last weekend.
“Glen Park has one of everything and now we are missing a hardware store,” local resident Lucas Leibold told the outlet.
“I definitely took a few little things with me there and had a few keys copied.”
The store held a 50% off liquidation sale last weekend before closing its doors for good.
The store was opened in 1963 by Ed Josephson, who sold it to Hal and Susan Tauber in 1978.
The couple ran the store together for 38 years before selling it to another couple in 2016, the San Francisco Gate reported.
The Taubers sold the store earlier this year to Rikbull, a limited liability company, which subsequently announced its closure.
It follows a number of other closures in the neighborhood this summer, including Cuppa, a boba shop, and the bar at Glen Park Station.
Small businesses in California are hit by rising costs after years of inflation and the dominance of online shopping.
Just last week, the legendary Californian fashion store Fred Segal closed its two remaining stores in Los Angeles.
Founded in 1961, the store became a fixture on the city’s fashion scene and a symbol of relaxed LA style.
The company, which once had nine stores in California, was popular with celebrities such as Jennifer Aniston, Rihanna and Paris Hilton and even became a pop culture reference through films such as Legally Blonde and Clueless.
In the 1995 cult film “Clueless,” Cher (Alcia Silverstone) asks her housekeeper to help her find her “white collarless Fred Segal shirt.”
Glen Park Hardware served the upscale Glen Park neighborhood for 61 years
Yet retailers of all sizes are closing their doors, and even big names are being forced to shutter stores.
The large department store Macy’s, for example, announced earlier this year that it would close a third of its stores by 2026, 50 of them this year alone.
The rapid rise of online competitors and the closure of shopping malls in American suburbs and inner cities are some of the factors that experts believe contributed to the company’s decline.
Others blame the crisis on a disappearing middle class, a failed digital transformation or an inability to appeal to a younger generation of consumers.
Other department stores Neiman Marcus and JCPenney have both filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Sears now has only a dozen stores across the country – after the company had over 4,000 branches in 2012.
