A little bit of everything

QUINCY — Quincy Hardware and Lumber owner Tina Stetner - along with Sophie the dog, because Sophie is part of the crew at QHL - greeted a couple of customers who walked in on a Wednesday morning.

“You guys need anything?” Stetner asked.

“We’re just doing a little shopping,” one of the customers replied, while the other had spotted Sophie.

“Is that a store dog?” the second customer asked.

“They have a store cat, too,” the first customer said.

Cheeto is the cat, and he was sleeping in the basket at the top of his cat tree, right next to the rack of sun hats. And the sun hats are right across the aisle from the box of flip-flops, which are right across the aisle from the display of power tools. Quincy Hardware and Lumber is the sort of store that has a little bit of everything.

The customers who came to do some shopping needed cargo straps to secure a load, and QHL had them. The straps were in the same aisle as the ice cream case, which is sitting across from the special order of pizza ovens.

“I had a customer tell me yesterday that we are to the point that if we don’t have it, they don’t need it,” Stetner said. “And I said, ‘Except we can’t live on ice cream. We do need a few groceries.’ But we do have ice cream.”

“Ice cream and beef jerky,” manager Jeremy Sewall said.

There’s been a hardware store on the corner of E Street SE and First Street SE for a long time; Stetner and her then-husband added lumber when the family purchased the business in 2012. Her two daughters worked at QHL when they were in high school and college, she said, and her son Nate still does.

“My daughter and I were working up front one day and a customer walked in and just looked at us and said, ‘This is a family-run business, isn’t it?’” Stetner said.

Quincy Hardware and Lumber is the sort of place where customers can find fishing poles and fishing supplies, lawn sprinklers, hammers, power drills, electrician’s tape, plumbing joints, twine and paint, among many other things. Patrons can also drop off packages for shipping, and the shop does embroidery as well.

“It’s the lumberyard, we have embroidery, we do special orders - hunting (supplies),” Stetner said.

The store sells ammunition and fishing and hunting licenses as well,” they said.

One of the keys to being in business - and staying in business - is being responsive to customer needs, Stetner said. Customers in a farm town with a lot of construction going on need a lot of items.

“I just had a customer looking for 700 C-clamps, a specific C-clamp,” Sewall said. “I could’ve gotten them, we couldn't have gotten them in time, but we were able to pull (about) 140 out of our warehouse, and he was tickled pink. We got him started.”

Customers have called looking for items that normally aren’t stocked by a hardware store. There was the customer running an auto glass business that called Sewall on his way to work from his home in Harrington. Just on the off chance QHL might have a critical component he couldn’t find elsewhere.

“He (said), ‘I know it’s a long shot, but can you look?’ I had three vendors in mind where I could look, and I did. I came up short. But he (said), ‘Hey, thank you for trying,’” Sewall said.

“When I first started, there was a guy who wanted every three-inch paint brush we had,” he said. “When we got done, he had (about) 64 of them. He (said) ‘Well, I needed 78, so that’s a great start.’”

Stetner said she thinks her clientele appreciate the fact that the store is locally-owned and there are no corporate hoops to jump through.

“That’s probably the thing that separates us, is we’re not dealing with that,” Sewall said.

It’s also important to know the local market, Stetner and Sewall said.

“We realize not too many people are coming in to buy lighting for an entire house,” Sewall said. “We’ve tried to do higher-end and lots of variety. It’s just not our market.”

Customer service starts at the door, Stetner said.

“If you watch the (staff) up front, even if they’re in the middle of something they greet the customers when they come in,” Sewall said. “That’s huge.”

And Sophie and Cheeto are part of the staff. Sophie is the Stetner family dog, and Cheeto arrived courtesy of former employee Uriel Heras, who found the sick kitten out back about three winters ago, Stetner said. The staff nursed him through multiple rounds of antibiotics, and customers got to know him.

“He is pretty famous. We have a lot of people that come in and ask for Cheeto,” Stetner said.

Heras and Cheeto still have a bond.

“When he gets off work, he comes to pick up the cat,” Stetner said. “So Cheeto frequently goes home to spend the night, and then he drops (Cheeto) back off. We have shared visitation.

“It keeps Cheeto out of trouble, actually. He’s not bored at night or on Sunday when we’re closed,” she said.

Cheeto does have a tendency to get into things when he’s left alone, she said.

“He is a little naughty sometimes. He eats flip-flops. He’ll eat the little rubber parts on fishing poles. We’ve had to do some discounts,” Stetner said.

Quincy Hardware and Lumber has built a rapport with its customers, and that pays off, Stetner said.

“We really try,” Stetner said. “We have customers that come in just to look around because we have such a variety. We had a new customer come in the other day, and he walked in the front door, he looked at the cat, and he looked at the dog, and he said, ‘I love this place already.’”

Cheryl Schweizer may be reached at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com. She is a resident of Moses Lake and enjoys sewing during her spare time, whenever her editor isn't pestering her about deadlines.

Quincy Hardware and Lumber

Monday-Saturday: 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.

23 E Street SW, Quincy

509-787-0800

www.quincyhl.com