If you are an aficionado of retail hardware stores, a walk through this place is like being a kid in a candy store.
You name it, Nate and Lori Tracy Stobbe have it at Lori’s Ace Home & Hardware, which has been open since March 15 in Highland Centre shopping complex on Raeford Road. And customers seem to be enamored with the business that once housed the Stein Mart department store retail clothing chain.
“It’s been great,” says Lori Stobbe, 51.
No argument from husband Nate Stobbe.
“Everybody is telling us how excited they are we opened this store,” Nate Stobbe, 54, says as customers peruse everything from outdoor grills, lawnmowers, power tools, showerheads and faucets to ceiling fans, interior and exterior paint, birdfeeders, patio umbrellas, shovels, rakes and just about everything imaginable.
Don’t forget the nuts and bolts and screws.
“Each Ace store is different,” Lori Stobbe says.
But this one, the couple says, is a “Super Ace store.”
Customers seem to be loving it, and Nate and Lori Stobbe are loving being in Fayetteville after spending time looking for what they hoped would be a perfect town for their business. They arrived here after living in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, and the couple can tell you about those turbulent days and nights of protests over the murder of 46-year-old George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer on May 20, 2020, outside a grocery store.
“It was quite the summer,” says Lori Stobbe, who was working in marketing for a financial firm at the time.
Nate Stobbe says so, too.
“A lot of unrest,” says Nate, who worked in the building industry. “There was National Guard all over the place.”
All the while, Nate and Lori Stobbe had an Ace Hardware store on their minds to leave the cold winters behind.
“We liked North Carolina,” she says. “We started looking in Charlotte, but our Ace representative said, ‘Have you been to Fayetteville?’ We flew here in April of last year. We saw a gap in retail hardware.”
The old Stein Mart store, then an empty box, caught their eyes.
“This seemed like a sweet spot,” Lori Stobbe says. “Raeford Road was busy all the time.”
You might say the rest is history.
‘Happy customers’
Ace is the place, so the TV jingle goes, and Fayetteville is the place for Nate and Lori Stobbe.
The “friendly, helpful place,” Ace Hardware, circa 1924 and headquartered in Oak Brook, Illinois, promotes its franchise brand, and you will not find more welcoming and friendly business owners than Nate and Lori Stobbe. And that goes for their employees, too.
If you are looking for it and can’t find it, no matter what you are looking for in the store, they’ll find it for you, and they won’t stop until they do.
“Seeing how happy customers are when they arrive and start walking the store is what gives us all energy,” Lori Stobbe says. “Our staff truly enjoys helping others and has dedicated many hours to learning about the products in the store.”
And in this 20,000-square-foot business, they’ve got just about everything a customer might want, including brand names from Stihl, Ego, Toro, Milwaukee, DeWalt, Craftsman, Big Green Egg, Traeger, Weber, Yeti, Scout, Swig and Lego. The store also is an authorized Stihl repair dealer.
About your ‘to do’ list
And here’s something else you might want to know about Nate and Lori’s business: It includes Ace Handman Services, which means they’ll come and install or repair for all the household chores for idiots like me who can’t figure out anything.
If you have a “to do list” at your home, Nate Stobbe says, the Ace handyman folks will come take care of kitchen and bathroom installation, caulking, drywall repairs, painting and even a fence in need of repair.
“Now, you can buy the items for your project and book the appointment to have a craftsman do the work for you,” Lori Stobbe says. “All in one place.”
It’s a gift, so help me, for an idiot like me.
Lori’s Ace Home & Hardware, so help me again, is the place, replete with a garden center.
“We have garden quality plants and more,” Lori Stobbe says, with more on the way with spring here and summer on the approach. “Perennials, boxwoods, azaleas, and probably trees.”
OK, just for a moment of review here.
You’ll find fertilizer for your yard, grass seed, shovels, summer and winter rakes, kitchen and bathroom faucets, shower heads, chain saws, weed trimmers, garden clippers, water hoses, lawnmowers, patio umbrellas, beach umbrellas, beach coolers, beach chairs, lightbulbs, wind chimes, a gift shop, and even toys for kids.
“It’s been steady,” Aaron Russell, the 28-yer-old assistant manager, says about the business less than 2 weeks old. “Everybody still is learning that we’re open.”
The grand opening is scheduled for May 5-7, with a 9:30 a.m. ribbon-cutting that will feature demonstrations, information about products and even some giveaways to include hot dogs.
Epilogue
I’m in a quandary.
Lori’s Ace Home Hardware is open, and already my eyes are on that battery-operated Milwaukee screwdriver and that moving trolly, and Lori Stobbe already knows I’m a sure thing.
“From the very first time we came to Fayetteville, we heard and felt the excitement from the community around getting an Ace store,” Nate Stobbe says. “Helping a customer find exactly what they need for their home in one trip — from a simple bolt to a gallon of paint to a large grill — is truly satisfying.”
This is Lori and Nate Stobbe’s place at Highland Centre, where the parking is plentiful, too. And a welcome business for this community.
Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.
