In Honor of Our Founder

As each June approaches, you’ll find everyone at Cole Hardware busy getting ready for one of our most festive events of the year. Fittingly falling in the same month as Father’s Day, we celebrate the birthday of our own founding father, Dave Karp. As Dave’s granddaughter, I am lucky to have had him as the patriarch of my Cole Hardware family and my immediate family as well. This was always a very celebratory month for our family! (My brother David’s birthday also falls in June!)

Dave first opened his doors for business as Cole Hardware in 1961 when he purchased Cole Street Hardware, which had been at its original location since 1920. Previous to that, Dave worked for years at his father-in-law’s store: Gilbert Electric and Radio in downtown San Francisco. He learned a lot working for my great-grandfather, but there was one thing about the way he ran his business that my papa could not abide: he didn’t feel customers were consistently treated to the friendliest service possible.

With help from two of my great uncles, he was able to pull together the funds to open his own store. Over the door, he hung a sign with the message that remains a motto in our business today: “There are no strangers here, just friends we haven’t met.”

At Cole Hardware, we strive to keep our dedication to complete customer satisfaction as genuine and heartfelt as it was back when the store was a one-man operation run by Dave. Right up there with befriending folks from all walks of life, basking in the sunshine, bacon with extra salt, and onions eaten whole like apples, what was always near and dear to Dave’s heart was scoring a great deal!

-Adrianna