Since August 2023, residents of the Inner Sunset have been waiting anxiously for Progress Hardware, which dates to 1948, to reopen its doors after a three-alarm fire shuttered it that year.
“We were there almost every other day,” said Christian Routzen, whose clothing store, San Franpsycho, is located around the corner from Progress Hardware on Ninth Avenue near Golden Gate Park.
“We shop for everything from hardware to paint to keys. Most stores on Ninth Avenue were built from hardware from them.”
During the months after the Aug. 8, 2023 fire, support poured in from neighbors. A GoFundMe raised more than $63,000 to rebuild the store. Progress Hardware also received a $10,000 grant for fire disaster relief from San Francisco’s Office of Small Businesses, and $9,750 from District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar’s office.
Locals watched in anticipation as construction workers fixed up the storefront at 724 Irving St. In the past few months, the plywood was removed. The store looks ready.
But Progress Hardware is not coming back, its co-owner, Randy Blair, confirmed.
The store lost its business and liability insurance coverage due to the fire, he said. The owners also couldn’t come to an agreement on a new lease with the current landlord. With tariffs, prices for a hardware store’s inventory have also gone up.
“It’s the perfect storm, so to speak,” Blair said.
Joe Blair, Randy’s father and co-owner, is 68, and decided that he was ready to retire. The plan was to pass the store on to Randy. But when Randy Blair realized it would cost more than $1 million to reopen, he decided to bow out.
“The fire just ruined us,” Randy Blair said. “I would have to start from the ground up. It’s too much of a financial blow.”
The money from the neighbors and the city grants helped, Randy Blair said; they used it to pay the store’s 10 employees for a while. Afterward, there was no money left.
“When we faced the heartbreaking loss of our store, the outpouring of generosity from our neighbors carried us through one of the most difficult times of our lives,” Randy Blair said in a text message. “We are forever grateful for that compassion, and it will always remain a part of our family’s story.”
Now, even if it’s not Progress Hardware, neighbors are trying to bring some hardware store into the Inner Sunset. Progress Hardware has been there since 1948. The landlord, Randy Blair said, also agreed to lease to a hardware store to “keep the tradition alive.”
Progress Hardware’s neighbor, Routzen, would also like to keep that tradition and the small-hardware-store-in-the-big-city vibe. He remembers fondly how Joe Blair would offer him credit for his purchases: Joe Blair kept a list of items bought over the week, and Routzen would pay for it all at once.
“That’s probably one of the coolest things ever,” Routzen said. “There was that nostalgic feeling.”
Angie Petitt, owner of Sunset Mercantile, has reached out to other Sunset hardware stores to see if they might expand: Duke’s on Noriega, Great Wall Hardware, and Sunset Hardware. Most told her they don’t have the finances or bandwidth to take the space, she said.
“It’s such a big lift, you know?”
In city planning, it is essential to have basic goods within walking distance in a neighborhood commercial corridor, said Ted Egan, the city’s chief economist. Egan used to live in Cole Valley, and often found himself walking to Cole Hardware and buying three nails for 12 cents.
“If you need three nails, you’re back in three minutes,” he said. “If you walk there, you don’t have to drive to Home Depot. You are better off. The roads are better off. The merchants are better off. And that’s how it’s supposed to work.”
But as online shopping eviscerated local retail stores, that has changed.
The Inner Sunset, for example, has welcomed an array of new businesses in recent months : Restaurants, organic grocery stores, sandwich shops. But the neighborhood staples that facilitate these necessities — like a local pharmacy, bank branch and hardware store — closed, and often nothing comes to replace them.
“It’s hard on them,” Petitt said. “Online purchasing is convenient. But there’s just nothing like trying to match up a screw or paint [in the store.] It’s irreplaceable.”
I remember when Lynn owned the store and when Joe took it over. I will miss the place.
I’m very sorry to read this. They were wonderful people and will be missed by their customers. I wish them the best with their future and retirement.
724 Irving is a 2783 sf single-story building.
It did not have a fire-sprinkler system.
Such a system cost approx. $20K max. (today’s costs; approx. $7/sf for an existing building; less expensive for new construction) and would have prevented this disaster; the demise of this business and the loss of jobs.
In the scheme of things, this would have been an extraordinarily modest investment. One that could’ve been easily financed by the business/landlord.
Oh, well.
So the landlord is ok with a hardware store coming in, they just want one that will pay a much higher rent. Gotcha.
Hello? Landlords have bills too. For most owners insurance has either gotten astronomical or you can’t even get it without more serious upgrades that sometime cost hundreds of thousands of dollars (electrical). Things have gotten expensive for everyone not just the regular Joe.
For some reason people think landlords property is free, it’s not. People take risks to buy a commercial property. Definitely expensive in this town.
Sounds like a good family, wishing them best of luck.
I’ve thought about this store re-opening every time I need a screw, hardware for the kitchen, or a gallon of paint. It’s akin to losing a neighbor.
As an Inner Sunset resident living just up the hill from 9th and Irving, this blows so hard. I was there weekly. Small-box hardware stores are so important.
This is a terrible loss for our neighborhood.