Feb
7
A real shame. And shame on everybody that went to HomeDepot or Lowes instead. Burger’s Hardware has done so much for this community over the years. It cannot be replaced. I will miss the store and the people. I always shopped there first.
read it here
I agree. A lot of the new people in town have their heads up their butts! and never shopped there. I always knew i could run into somebody i knew there. It was a great shopping place and a state store right next door.
I guess there’ll be more empty storefronts in Aurora. it’ll look like east cleveland soon.
In my 37 years as a resident of Aurora, my observation has been that the community is not very supportive of the businesses here. More retailers than any of us can count have gone to pasture due to lack of support from the citizens of Aurora. The loss of Burger’s Hardware is a huge blow to this community not only in the services that we will now have to travel to get, but in the support of community events.
Thank you to the Burger Family for all they have done for this community in the 30 years of Burger’s Hardware.
Burger’s hardware will truly be missed.
I wonder if Aurora businesses support each other? Does our city with their various departments and our school system support our local businesses? Something to think about…
Reprinted here too!
Another death on mainstreet America
Mourning the loss of a local shopkeeper
I hate front-page obituaries; they’re always the worst. I opened the
latest issue of the Aurora Advocate and was saddened to see the
passing away of another American institution – the hardware store.
Gerry Burger and his brother Greg announced that they would be closing
the Aurora Burger’s hardware store at the end of February. Such a
shame, the store was only 32 years old.
But I don’t suppose many in the community will really take notice of
the passing, they’re too busy running off to the big box stores that
presently populate the former harness-racing track converted to
another concrete kingdom of consumer worship.
And I too will now be going off to Home Depot for my hardware needs.
But I won’t be too happy that I have to go there. Don’t get me wrong,
it’s not that I dislike Home Depot and Lowe’s and the other gargantuan
mega-stores, it’s that they don’t, and can’t, fulfill the same need
provided by the locally owned hardware store.
I know that I can get just about everything I need at the mega-stores
that I could get at my local hardware store, well, that is if I want
it in lots of five, ten, or more. But more often than not I can’t get
just what I need. What if I want one specific bolt and nut and what if
I want to return it because I got the wrong size – at my local
hardware store I walk in, make the exchange and go on, nothing to it.
At the mega-store I have to deal with the red tape of exchanges,
receipts and so on. It becomes more of a headache than it’s worth.
Beyond the convenience however, there are little things I will miss.
I will miss the personal attention and customer service. At the local
store they know my lawn mower, my chainsaw, snow thrower, and just
about any tool I’ve purchased or had serviced there. The big box,
they’re too uninterested to get to know me and my quirky needs. When
they do turn their attention to me (if I can find someone to give me
their attention) they usually have no idea how to begin helping me
accomplish my quirky tasks.
But what I’ll really miss the most from my local hardware store a
knowledgeable hardware man who applies his ingenuity and creatively to
solving some of the unusual fixit problems I regularly encounter in
everyday life. The mega-store guys are no match for the local hardware
man.
I will take some time to walk through the aisles one more time and
find what I can. And I will mourn its passing when it closes.
I know that the schools regularly purchased from Burgers, but I’m not sure about the rest of the city. I know that the city in general doesn’t strongly support their local businesses. We could easily have a local business district as strong as Hudson’s if only the city and a few of its residents would support the ones we have.
Speaking of the schools, this actually puts them in a bind. I remember (from when I used to work there) that Burger’s allows the city to purchase against a PO and send a bill later. The schools aren’t allowed to use credit cards so, with Home Depot, they’ll be relegated to forcing their employees to pay for the item and then getting reimbursed later.
Sorry to see it close