Sean C. Morgan
Hoy’s Hardware is celebrating its 75th birthday this month – and owner Greg Mahler attributes that to customer service over a lot of years that included many changes.
In celebration, the store is featuring some in-store promotions through the end of the month, said Mahler, the store’s third owner.
Hoy’s opened in 1939 at 1256 Main St. when Ivan Hoy purchased Johnson Meyer Hardware from Johnson Meyer.
Hoy had been running a grocery store, Mahler said, and he decided to get into hardware. Hoy’s was located next to Ace Home Supplies and Coast to Coast at the time.
Into the 1970s, each of the stores tended to specialize in different areas, Mahler said, Ace’s was paint, glass and building materials; Hoy’s concentrated on the nuts and bolts, the hardware; and Coast to Coast offered sporting goods and housewares.
Mahler recalled how Coast to Coast owner Virgil Walsh would answer customers looking for particular items. If he didn’t have it in his store, he would tell the customer to let him go to the warehouse and find it. Then he’d go out the back door to Hoy’s, get the item and take it back to his store next door.
All three of the stores worked that way, supporting and complementing each other, Mahler said. “We went well together.”
Mahler’s father, John Mahler, purchased Hoy’s in 1971. It was a different time, when a handshake represented a man’s word.
“Ivan Hoy was such a great man,” Mahler said. “I loved him dearly. When my dad bought the store in 1971, they agreed on a price. They shook each other’s hands.”
John Mahler had moved his family to Sweet Home to buy the store, Greg Mahler said. John Mahler previously had delivered water in Los Angeles and worked for Boise Cascade, a lumber store and a hardware store in Idaho.
Hoy had served as fire chief, Mahler said, and he was passionate about giving back to his community.
John Mahler and Hoy signed no contracts, Greg Mahler said. They made the deal on a handshake alone.
When another man offered more money for the hardware store, Mahler said, Hoy turned the deal down. He had already shaken hands with John Mahler.
“Ivan’s word meant a lot,” Greg Mahler said. “His handshake was as good as gold. He was one of the reasons I joined the Fire Department.”
In 1972, John Mahler decided to build a store at the current location, 3041 Main St. At the time, people thought it was weird, building outside town, Greg Mahler said.
The store expanded in 1986 to 12,500 square feet, Mahler said. Hoy’s expanded in the 1990s and early 2000s to 22,000 square feet, with the addition of building materials storage and an overflow warehouse.
“Through the years, we’ve had upward of seven hardware stores here in town,” Mahler said. Most have closed, but Hoy’s has continued.
“The key has been customer service,” he said. Hoy’s managers and staff meet monthly, and their top topic of discussion is customer service.
“You can buy a hammer anywhere,” Mahler said, so hardware stores must find a way to differentiate themselves, build a strength or fill a niche.
His store focuses on customer service because that’s where it can outpoint the competition, he said.
“We try the best as possible with our pricing,” Mahler said, but it’s competitive. “Trying to compete with big boxes, you’ll lose every time.”