If it wasn't for the young woman who helped us, I'd give this hardware store a 1-star review. If it was for merchandise alone, I'd probably give it 4 stars.
Recently, I took a forty minute drive to this Ace Hardware. The two big warehouse hardware stores, one of which is in my neighborhood, didn't carry a particular corner bracket my boyfriend needed for a woodworking project. We decided it was worth giving the small guy, "the place with the helpful hardware man," our business. Besides, it's a nice drive through the back-country roads.
We used Google to guide us and had a long strip of open curb right out front of the store to park. We walked in, and an older man was helping someone at the register. Honestly, we thought we'd get at least a "hello" walking in the door, even a glimpse from the man behind the counter, but we got nothing.
We walked around the store and a few times a very friendly young woman asked if we needed anything. The store is a lot bigger on the inside than it looks and offered a lot more variety of paint, garden, and hardware supplies than we expected. There are two sections where super old merchandise was displayed and those parts of the store looked like they hadn't been touched since the 50s, but the rest was well presented.
During our look around, we gathered a few small items we needed. I took the things to the register and said to the man, "I'm just going to set these down." Again, he didn't look at me and said absolutely nothing. Zero acknowledgment. His name tag read "Jack."
We couldn't find the woman at that point to help look for the brackets, so after a few minutes, I decided to return to the register and speak to Jack directly. He finished talking to another customer as I approached him from the aisle. I had a clear view of him. He walked toward me, I smiled and decided to wait for him to ask if I needed anything. He didn't look at me, he didn't utter a sound. He passed by me, and I waited to see if my boyfriend got a response. He was a few steps behind me, but Jack treated him the same way--quite rudely.
I had mentioned to the woman that the man was very unfriendly and unprofessional. She apologized, offering to help us. But that wasn't the point. I wanted to know that a manager or owner would be notified. The young woman, and even an elderly customer, both helped us look for the brackets, but the store didn't carry them. (Unfortunately, neither of us thought to get her name.)
I really hoped Jack would be the one to ring us up, but the girl was at the register when we left, still very cheerful and polite. She rang us up and again apologized for Jack, but gave no explanation of his very unhelpful "Ace" customer service skills. (Interestingly, he smiled and was very friendly at the register with the customers he had helped while we were there.)
Overall, the prices were good and selection very decent, but we won't be going out of our way again to visit this business, thanks to Jack's behavior toward us. read more
