Hammer Time Hardware Makes a Comeback

If Detroit neighborhoods outside downtown are really on the rebound, then residents are going to need a lot of help fixing up houses and commercial buildings in disrepair.

That’s been the thinking of cousins Adnan Gobah, 46, and Bassam Gobah, 37, who are expanding their modest hardware store chain with a new one in the MorningSide neighborhood on the city’s east side, writes Kurt Nagl for Crain’s Detroit Business.

The True Value-branded store called Hammer Time Hardware replaces one by the same name that closed in 2017 and left a hole in the community’s commercial district—a familiar occurrence for hardware stores in the city.

The revamped 8,000-square-foot shop offers tools, paint supplies, window and screen replacements, water heaters and plumbing essentials. Its selling point, though, is offering local do-it-yourselfers—its main clientele—knowledge of the neighborhood that’s lost at big-box stores, Bassam Gobah said.

“We have mostly residential customers who are buying up these old houses and fixing them up and trying to help revive the city,” he said. “The need for hardware stores in the city is there.”

To read more, click here.