A plan in motion

EPHRATA — Whenever Jim and Marylin Berschauer made a change to their longtime business, the Ephrata community followed.

"I call it a Vision 21 standard store, which means you do everything for the customer that's humanly possible to have a great shopping experience," Jim explained.

The experience begins from the moment a person drives into the parking lot, all the way to the person who loads a customer's car, he and his wife of almost 42 years explained.

"The customers have been extremely supportive — every time we made a change, the customers seemed to migrate to that change," Jim said. "It's amazing, when you remodel the store, that people would come in and use words like, we appreciate your reinvesting in the community. That just struck me. It was kind of like, 'No, you do that because you're trying to grow your business.' But they could see a lot of small businesses did not do that reinvestment, and I'll tell you most of them are not here today."

The Berschauers retired and sold their retail operation, Berschauer's Ace Hardware, located at 1140 Basin St. S.W., on Tuesday.

"We found the business challenging and interesting," Jim said.

"And gratifying," Marylin said.

The store is now Ephrata Ace Hardware, purchased by Ag Supply of Wenatchee, Inc., which currently owns Ace Hardware locations in East Wenatchee and Quincy, among others. All but two of the 15 employees at the store under the Berschauers remain in their positions in the new store.

The Berschauers retain the land and the buildings, including the Berschauer Business Center, which houses five other businesses.

"So we're still fully connected, we still have a mission in life," Jim said.

The Berschauers purchased the store from Jim's father 38 years ago. His parents, Manuel and Mildred Berschauer, arrived in the Columbia Basin at the same time as irrigation in the early 1950s. They built the store, still in its original location, in 1953 and opened it in 1954.

"It started out as new and used furniture," Jim said.

As time progressed and Larson Air Force Base closed, Manuel retooled the inventory to meet the economic needs of the community, doubling the size of the store at the end of the 1950s. By the early 1960s, items for sale included hardware salvage items, farm supplies and industrial tools and equipment.

Jim grew up in Ephrata, and met Marylin while both were students at Ephrata High School, as her father worked to build the base's missile sites. After years away at college and living in Wenatchee, they found an opportunity in taking over the store shortly after getting married.

Marylin worked full-time in the office until about five years ago, while Jim ran the floor.

The couple's favorite memories of working at the store include a number of remodels.

"I seem to get a buzz out of projects and remodels, and we did significant, large remodels," Jim said.

The Berschauers decided to remodel based on the arrival of Safeway in Ephrata, and wanted the look of their store to match the modern appearance of the grocery store.

For the Berschauers, stepping out of retail was a six-year process, including learning to transfer a business. Jim said the 24-hour, seven-day-a-week responsibility of a retail owner was a pace they knew they couldn't keep up forever. And two days in, the couple seems to be embracing retirement.

"It's a plan in motion," Marylin said. "We plan to stay in the community, of course. After having all those years of not having a lot of free time, it's going to be nice to have just the free time for a little while."

Ephrata and the surrounding communities have overwhelmed the Berschauers with congratulations.

"Everybody has been so very positive," Marylin said.

"It's kind of like everybody recognizes the amount of work we put into it, and that it is our time to be able to sit back and do something different," Jim said. "I think more people realize the demand of retail than we thought."