A beloved family-owned hardware store is closing on the Main Line

Betsy Funkhouser Ryan spotted Steve Scartozzi from across the room. In her hometown hardware store, surrounded by half-full shelves, she waited for Scartozzi to finish chatting with another customer, then asked if they could take a quick selfie, one she would text to her five siblings, all big fans.

Steve Scartozzi isn’t a rock star, politician, or public figure in the traditional sense.

But inside a tri-level hardware store in the middle of a Paoli shopping center, Steve, 73, and his younger brother and co-owner, Greg, 68, have become community fixtures, touching the lives — and helping fix the household problems — of countless families and business owners in Chester County and beyond.

“We grew up coming here,” said Ryan, 69, reminiscing about childhood bike rides to the store to browse its extensive selection of Madame Alexander dolls.

Along with the selfie, she texted her siblings the sad news: After almost 73 years in business, the Hardware Center in Paoli will soon close its doors for good.

“It’s bittersweet,” said Greg Scartozzi, who met his wife, Sue, working in the toy section more than 50 years ago. “So many people come up and ask: ‘Where are you going to go?’”

The answer: into a well-deserved retirement.

The store’s last day, June 3, will be an emotional one for the Scarzottis, whose parents, Cordine “Cordi” and Marie, started the business in a nearby Lancaster Avenue storefront after Cordi returned from World War II. By retiring now, the brothers are fulfilling promises they made to themselves not to spend their entire lives working, as their late father did.

Meanwhile, loyal customers are experiencing a rare and unexpected kind of retail mourning.

One woman had tears running down her cheeks as she talked to the brothers about her memories of the store, they said. When they posted a letter on Facebook in April announcing the closure, the grief was palpable in the comments.

“Saddens me like the loss of a family member,” wrote a former employee.

“I never thought I’d feel truly heartbroken over the loss of a store,” wrote a customer. “Paoli will feel a little less like home.”

Regulars say they doubt they’ll be able to find another place that can fill the void of this one-of-a-kind neighborhood institution.

It is part hardware store, part garden center, part toy store, with a floor dedicated to each. In the summer, they sold vegetables out front (tomatoes from Lancaster County were especially popular). By Halloween, the garden-center basement transformed into an elaborate Christmas shop and winter wonderland display, where kids could sit on Santa’s lap and their parents could find just about any holiday decoration imaginable.

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In its upstairs toy section, Big Smile Toys, longtime customers have fond memories of buying presents for their children and their grandchildren, drawn to its large selection, old-fashioned feel, and free gift wrapping.

In that department, “we didn’t want the TV item,” Steve Scartozzi said. Instead, they would go to toy shows in New York, constantly in search of unique toys, games, and educational products.

Ryan, who has been visiting the store since she was a child, came to appreciate the store even more as she got older. It felt like home, she said.

“You get to know the people. The customer service is something you don’t find” at other stores, she said in the parking lot, looking up at the storefront draped with a yellow banner reading “Retirement Sale.” At the Hardware Center, “they know you by name.”

As other independent hardware stores across the Philadelphia region closed in the past decade, the Hardware Center in Paoli chugged along.

It was propelled by the Scartozzis’ sheer force of will, strong customer allegiance, a wide and ever-changing selection of products, and a bit of good fortune. They never had to worry about rent, for example, because their parents bought their current building when the shopping center opened more than 60 years ago.

The brothers have mulled retirement for a while but kept delaying the decision. For the past three years, they’ve tried in vain to find a buyer who would want to continue the store’s legacy as a hardware store. As of last week, it had yet to be sold.

They certainly aren’t closing because business is slow, Steve Scartozzi said. In fact, he added, the rise of big-box stores and online shopping haven’t seemed to cost them many customers.

“The Home Depots and the Lowe’s never bothered us,” he said, noting that people come into the Paoli Hardware Center for a different experience.

Often, he said, “a person comes into the store with a problem,” and employees immediately work with them to solve it. If more help is needed, he added, an owner is usually on-site to offer advice or help find a specific tool or piece of hardware.

“At a big chain store, I hate it because it’s so overwhelmingly big,” said Guy Vanderlaag, 55, of Malvern, who started shopping at the center a decade ago because his then-boss had a house charge — which allowed employees to pick up items that the boss would pay for later. “As soon as you walk in here, plenty of guys greet you: ‘What do you need?’ They are right there to help you.”

He has kept coming in for personal household needs and for his work as a property manager.

“I just love it,” he added after checking out. “I’m really going to miss it.”