San Francisco dealer realizes dream of owning grandfather's store - Fredericksen's Hardware - Brief Article

Home Channel News, Oct 22, 2001 by Brae Canlen

After 55-year hiatus, Fredericksen's Hardware is back in original family's hands

SAN FRANCISCO -- When Dennis Drobisch was a boy, he would walk past his grandfather's old hardware store on Fillmore Street here and say to himself, "Some day, I'm going to get it back." Forty years later, he did just that.

Fredericksen's Hardware was built in 1896 by Drobisch's grandfather, a former cable car conductor who sold paint, roofing shingles, lumber and hardware during San Francisco's boom-town days. The store survived the earthquake of 1906 and the Great Depression, but it didn't weather the untimely death of Theodore Fredericksen in 1940. The family sold the business in 1945 but held on to the building. Drobisch grew up in the same Marina District neighborhood, listening to his grandmother's stories about the family's hardware store. He even bought supplies for his go carts at Fredericksen's. "One of the salesmen there helped me build them," Drobisch recalled.

Fredericksen's Hardware went through several owners during the next few decades. One individual, James Hill, ran the business from 1976 to 2000. Meanwhile, Drobisch worked for a hardware distributor and spent nine years at Goodman's Lumber, a landmark San Francisco dealer that closed in 2000. That same year, Hill's lease came up for renewal at Fredericksen's. Drobisch, who has been rehabbing old buildings around town, bought the business from Hill. Most of the staff stayed on, including two employees with 20 years experience each, and another who recently retired after a 30-year stint.

With so much history behind it, Fredericksen's Hardware could easily resemble a staid retail outlet with too many fasteners and toilet-bowl brushes. But Fredericksen's shelves hold French laundry soap, Mexican cookbooks and hand woven brooms. The store carries a dozen styles of kitchen scales, five sizes of espresso percolators (plus the electric models) and cherry pitters that range in price from $1.29 to $12.

"We stock a dozen different garlic peelers, and people still ask, 'Is this all you have?'" said housewares-department manager Tom Grell. Housewares take up almost half of the 4,500-square-foot operation, which is actually two connected storefronts. On one side is the traditional hardware-store assortment with key cutting, paint mixing, pipe threading and tool rentals. Niche offerings include Victorian-style moldings and light fixtures, as well as hard-to-find cabinet hinges. The area's older housing stock, built with lath-and-plaster walls, requires special hooks to hang artwork. Renters also come looking for paint, dish drainers and cleaning supplies.

Or in some cases, they send their parents. "We've had [college students] whose parents fly in from Boston to set up their apartments," said Linda Gallegos, the store's general manager. "It happens all the time." With housing costs out of reach for most families, many couples in the area buy houses together and live on separate floors. Although the city of San Francisco frowns on these "tenants in common," the extra households are a bonus for Fredericksen's. The store also benefits from its proximity to wealthy residents of Pacific Heights, who often dispatch their staffs to buy supplies on the household account. The store's clientele even includes senior citizens living in residential hotels and working-class folks lucky enough to inherit a Queen Anne row house.

"The diversity of the customers makes it interesting for the staff," said Mary Drobisch, who also works at the Ace Hardware-affiliated store. Drobisch sounded almost deferential when she spoke of Fredericksen's 30 employees. "We're learning from them," she said, adding, "Just because you buy a business doesn't mean you know how to ran it."

Empowering employees

In an effort to retain their workers, the new owners raised salaries and started a 401(k) plan. Each salesperson, even part-timers, is assigned a department or several product categories. They meet one-on-one with manufacturers' reps and, with guidance from upper management, place orders.

The results are reflected in Andi Moss, a seven-year-employee who's in charge of giftware and tabletop. "The mugs are mine, the books are mine, but Dolores does the electronics," said Moss as she gave a tour of her section. Wearing red bowling shoes and leopard-print glasses, Moss explained her philosophy behind giftware ("I try to be really conservative") and cookware ("It should be unisex"). She pointed apologetically to "the failed area," where silver lace doilies, little metal colanders and other slow-moving products have been marked down 50 percent. "My customers just didn't like coffee mugs with [musical] composers on them," she sighed.

Like some of the other housewares specialists at Frederickeen's, Moss worried when a Williams-Sonoma store opened down the street several years ago. But everyone now agrees that the specialty kitchen retailer has created spillover business for Fredericksen's, which carries a greater breadth of similar inventory. Other retail neighbors - a gourmet cigar store and an Italian shoe boutique, together with lots of restaurants and hair salons - add to the commercial ambiance, as well .as the parking crunch. None of the stores has its own lot, although Fredericksen's validates parking in a structure three blocks away. Most of its customers arrive on foot, however. The store offers free delivery with no minimum purchase, and its truck once drove to a Pacific Heights mansion to drop off a can of cleanser and a sponge.