First Outdoor Supply Hardware Opens to Rave Reviews

Debbie McCarthy of Napa was so happy that an Outdoor Supply Hardware had opened in north Napa, Calif., she did a little dance inside the store, writes Jennifer Huffman in the Napa Valley Register. “It gave me goosebumps with excitement,” she said. “I’m like a kid in a candy store.”

Outdoor Supply Hardware is owned by Central Network Retail Group. That’s an entirely different business than the company that owned the former Orchard Supply Hardware.

In July, John Sieggreen, president of Central Network Retail Group, said the company chose Napa as the location of its first Outdoor Supply Hardware brand because “we know that Orchard had a successful store there. We like the area’s demographics. We believe it’s a growing area with people that are used to that quality shopping experience.”

“We’re pleased with how it turned out,” Sieggreen said in a recent phone interview with Huffman. “We’ve been happy with the feedback we’ve received from customers. So far so good.”

This is the company’s first venture into California. However, the company is not new to hardware and home and garden stores. Central Network Retail Group, a multi-format, multi-brand retailer, currently operates more than 100 hardware stores, home centers and lumberyards under different brand names in more than a dozen states. Outdoor Supply Hardware intends to open four more stores in the Bay Area in coming months including stores in Moraga, Capitola, San Jose and Berkeley.

Orchard’s parent company, Lowe’s, announced in August 2018 that after 87 years, the Orchard Supply Hardware chain would close all of its 99 home improvement stores. The move came five years after Lowe’s bought most Orchard Supply stores out of bankruptcy following an ill-fated spin-off from former owner Sears Holdings Corp. The Napa OSH closed in November 2018.

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