The Heart of Hassett Hardware

Being in the heart of Silicon Valley, Hassett Hardware in Palo Alto serves a diverse community ranging from tradesmen/women from local businesses, families needing to keep a house-hold running smoothly, students from Stanford working on frontiers of technology, to start-ups bringing the latest innovations to market. On any day of the week you’ll see folks from all these groups in one spot in the store - the fasteners Department.

The common thread of these communities is their coming together at Hassett Hardware at Alma and Channing looking for solutions to their day-to-day problems.

The heart of any hardware store is the Fastener Department, better known as the place where one can find everything from a tiny metric screw needed to repair a clock to a box of concrete anchors for a construction site, and everything in between.

Hassett Hardware is constantly looking at the types and mix of products it offers in all its departments to see how we can better serve our customers, what new products customers will need, and how can we better solve existing problems for our customers.

So what’s new at Hassett Hardware?

We just renovated the entire fastener department: moving out all old inventory and fixtures and replacing them with new shelving, bins, drawers and stock. It’s been almost ten years since the last overall reset for this department in Palo Alto, so it was time.

What will I find in the new fastener department?

• Expected and needed items such as screws, nut, bolts and other hardware
• Quadruple the amount of metric items we used to carry
• Expanded selection on existing categories such as spacers
• Aluminum
• Stainless steel
• Nylon

• Significantly more sizes of jam nuts
• An entirely new category dedicated to expansion springs

These new and expanded categories allow us to better support long-time customers, as well as support new applications of hardware from Stanford students and Silicon Valley start-ups.

What else is new?

We’ve also refreshed some of the educational “how-to” displays and brochures in the department. Be sure to check out the excellent display on all manner of wall anchors the next time you are in the store.

And we aren’t finished, because over the next few months we will fill in some empty spaces, and refresh the corner with specialty metals, tube, wires, and sheets. This inventory is the bedrock of many projects – and we’re working to meet your needs both with great new innovative products, and knowledgeable staff.

We are always interested in hearing about your applications and needs for fasteners and associated hardware. If you have feedback for us, please feel free to call the store: 650-327-7222, email us at info@hassetthardware.com or leave us a message on our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/HassettAceHardware.

Since completely refurnishing and restocking the department we’ve had customers complete home projects: fixing a wobbly ceiling fan, attaching a mirror to a door, building a deck; to hobby projects: fixing a 30-year old telescope mount, building an Archimedes screw, renovating an Airstream trailer; to some cutting edge high-tech start-up endeavors: building a heart-stent mock-up. We’d love to have you come in with your next project and let us help you find the latest, greatest, and fastest way to complete it! 

-Lee Courtney

Our Favorite Things

The store managers and the support team, along with both of the owners, have a weekly conference call where we catch each other up on important news, ideas, products, sales, happenings. Within all of this information sharing is a question that gets posed to each of the managers, every week: "What is your favorite thing that happened in your store this week?" The question may vary to what employee had the greatest impact, or what customer experience was the best, but it all comes down to a particular moment that stands out as exceptional.

One of the things I love about this question is the managers always have something to say, and they often have more than one story they want to share. It's one thing to talk about core values and creating intentional company culture. It's another thing entirely to live and breathe it, day in and day out, and each week have something tangible to share with others that walks the talk of integrity, or great customer awareness or being results driven (just a few of our core values).

We hear from customers very regularly that our stores feel different, that the sales team actually seems to care about customers' projects and about them as people. We hear a lot that we have exceptional customer service and that we feel homey. This kind of feedback is always a morale booster and what I love about our team is that that kind of praise and enthusiasm comes from the inside as well. Which is why customers feel the way they do about us. You can't fake genuine and authentic. It has to come, one favorite thing at a time.

-Jocelyn Lovelle