Ace Hardware will open in East Bay, South Bay

Pinole, Mountain View will get new hardware stores at shuttered Orchard Supply locations

Ace Hardware will open Bay Area stores at two locations, one in the East Bay and one in the South Bay, that once were occupied by the now-defunct Orchard Supply Hardware chain, Ace said.

Mountain View and Pinole will be the sites of the new stores, according to Ace Hardware.

The new Ace Hardware at 1440 Fitzgerald Drive in Pinole is slated to open Aug. 14. The store will occupy 31,000 square feet and employ roughly 50 people.

“Pinole consumers will once again have a neighborhood hardware store, full of friendly and familiar faces, and an exciting blend of products,” said Eric Evensen, general manager for the new store. A number of the employees are expected to be former workers from the old Orchard Supply.

Ace Hardware also intends to open a store at 2555 Charleston Road in Mountain View, with a grand opening set for Oct. 18 through Oct. 20, the retailer said.

“The store will feature an exciting blend of familiar and new products,” said Chris Gueriero, manager of the new Mountain View store.

The Mountain View store will total 34,000 square feet and also have approximately 50 workers, according to Ace Hardware.

The Ace Hardware Diridon store in downtown San Jose at 787 The Alameda opened in February, according to a store manager. That downtown location for Ace is brand new and has nothing to do with Orchard Supply.

Orchard Supply had been a Bay Area retailing institution since it was founded in San Jose in 1931 as a farmer’s co-op.

But an increasingly bloody battle among operators of big-box stores claimed Orchard Supply as a fresh victim in 2018.

Lowes, the final owner of Orchard Supply, decided to close all Orchard stores, part of a quest by Lowe’s to keep pace with rival hardware retailer Home Depot.

Sears bought Orchard in the 1990s and then sold it to Lowe’s in 2013, a transaction that at the time raised hopes that Lowe’s could refresh Orchard Supply and give the retailer a new lease on life.

Ultimately, however, Lowe’s closed the doors for all 99 Orchard locations in California, Oregon, and Florida. An estimated

4,000 Orchard Supply workers were displaced by the shutdown. Dozens of the Orchard stores that Lowe’s closed were in the Bay Area.

The new Pinole and Mountain View Ace stores will both offer what the retailer calls “store-in-astore” concepts and departments.

The Garden Center will feature a full range of seasonal live goods and gardening supplies along with patio furniture. A Backyard BBQ department

will feature a full range of grills and barbecue accessories. In the Outdoor Power Equipment department, the store will sell blowers, chain saws, mowers, and string trimmers. The Tool Shop will feature power and hand tools. The Paint Studio will feature a wide range of paints and painting supplies. Kitchen Essentials will offer kitchen gadgets and tools, along with cookware and coffee items, as well as specialty foods from local companies.

The managers of both stores vowed to offer plenty of help for customers confronted by a tricky endeavor.

“Our neighbors will see firsthand how we live the Ace Helpful Promise every day by delivering reliable service, helpful advice, and products to help customers get their projects done right,” Gueriero, the Mountain View manager, said.