For decades, Gelzer's Hardware has been operating in the historic downtown Hillsdale as the main venue for the close-knit community of Hillsdale. 

The company has earned its reputation year after year because it is a place to look for items that other retail locations don’t have, which sparked the mantra: “If you can’t find it, go to Gelzer's.”

Andrew Gelzer, the great-grandson of the store’s founder, said that when the store opened in 1919, it was originally a general store, selling everything from horse tack to women’s corsets. 

Over the years, the Gelzer family listened to customers and kept increasing inventory, and finally opened a hardware department in the 1940s. 

Over the years, the location of Howell Street continued to grow one by one, and the family eventually ran a hardware store outside of three stores. 

"We crossed that block in seclusion, we can't do it again," Gelzer said. "It's where people are asking, and we can't satisfy them, but it doesn't mean we stop listening, we just stop adding them."

In order to continue the family's tradition of meeting customer needs, the company acquired the former Aisen Plumbing Fittings Company located on the corner of Carlton Road and Oak Street in 2011, and plans to move the hardware store to a larger place one day. Place. 

"The old location is becoming increasingly inconvenient for our customers," Gelzer said.

In 2017, after 6 years of thinking, things started to turn around. Construction started in 2020 and continued until 2021. 

Gelzer's officially opened in a new location three weeks ago. 

"You can see how this place is different from the old place," Gelzer said. "Its layout is for convenience, and it's modern."

But the change in venue did not slow down the customer service that the business relies on. 

As the fifth generation descendant of the Gelzer family, Gelzer is always committed to greet customers when they enter and assist them in finding anything they may need.

Gelzer said: "When I was a kid, over the decades, I never thought that this would happen." "It's because the community invested in this business. The community shopped locally. When they In doing so, the community will indeed become better. The business here will stand the test of time."

Gelzer said that the previous location of the hardware store will be used as a warehouse in the short term, and employees will ship inventory to the new location almost every day. 

The Gelzer family is planning a grand reopening ceremony in the spring of 2022.