People are flocking to a family owned hardware store that’s become a staple in Kalamazoo.
Hoekstra’s True Value Hardware is closing after nearly 150 years in business.
Co-owner Phil Ippel says he’s looking forward to more golfing, traveling and volunteering in the community. He’s even got a river cruise booked for next year.
“It’ll be a few months here, some hard work to get it down where we can do that,” he chuckled.
Ippel says lines have been long and sales good, but it’ll take about 8 weeks to get rid of everything; key cutting machines, pipe threader and all.
Ippel says lots of longtime customers and friends have been stopping by since the liquidation sale started Thursday.
“It is bittersweet because both my partner Tom and I have been here 50 plus years. Our whole working lives we kind of grew up in the business. Our dads were here as well,” he said.
They tried to sell the store, but nothing panned out. Buyers were hard to find and the banks didn’t help," Ippel said.
