The owner of Our Hardware, which opened in early 2016 near the Perkins Road overpass, is planning to open a second location this fall in the former Naylor’s Hardware and Garden Center on Old Hammond Highway. Naylor’s closed in August 2016 after it was inundated with more than five feet of water during the historic flood.
For the past several months, Our Hardware owner Henry Bingham has been gutting, cleaning and refurbishing the 7,000-square-foot building in hopes of opening it soon. But he says it’s still too early to say exactly when that will be.
Bingham and Johnny Naylor, who owns the building, still haven’t worked out the exact terms of the arrangement, which Naylor says will probably be structured as a lease purchase agreement. But Naylor says he’s not worried about the details. He’s just happy to have the building, which wasn’t insured against flood damage, renovated and put back into commerce.
He believes residents of the neighborhood and his longtime customers, also will be glad.
“I hear it from people all the time,” says Naylor, who teamed up with Clegg’s Nursery after the flood and began working at Clegg’s three locations on a consulting basis. “The people in that neighborhood want their hardware store back. They miss it.”
If social media is any indication, loyal Naylor’s customers were devastated when Naylor decided last year not to reopen the store, which had been in business at that location since the early 1980s. They inundated Naylor’s Facebook page with posts, bemoaning the demise of their neighborhood institution.
Naylor says he will not be a part of the new Our Hardware location.
“Absolutely not,” he says. “I love not being the guy in charge anymore.”
Naylor and Bingham have a decades-long association that dates back to the original Naylor Bros. Hardware on Government Street, which was owned by Naylor’s father. Bingham got his start there as any employee and, years later, returned to the store, which was by then under new ownership and operated as Government Street Hardware. He served as manager there for nine years.
When Government Street Hardware closed in late 2015, Bingham bought its remaining inventory to jump start his new store, which is located in the former Overpass Cleaners building. In the 18 months since, Bingham says business has been good, though not easy.
“We’re getting there,” he says. “We’re paying the bills. That’s all I can say.”
Opening a second location so soon after opening the first will present certain challenges but also will give Bingham economies of scale and hopefully enable him to grow, says Naylor.
“When you have one store already up and running, it can support you while you’re trying to get the second one going,” he says. “I still remember when I was a kid and my dad was trying to open the second store. If we hadn’t had the Government Street location that first year, we wouldn’t have made it.”
—Stephanie Riegel
