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Aikenhead's: Where Gucci and gaskets meet
by Angela Bianchi, Centre Magazine, July 1988

A man in an Armani original, sporting Italian leather loafers with matching briefcase, discusses home renovation with a stylish woman in a linen suit. The conversation doesn't take place in some posh outdoor café adorned with Santa Fe coloured umbrellas, but at Aikenhead's Hardware in the heart of downtown Toronto, where the city's business world comes to shop.

Greying businessmen study the latest electrical gadgetry with intensity, while a group of women discuss the advantage of using Pratt and Lambert paint. It's a sight for sore suburban eyes worn by the chaos of weekend shopping at home centres.

The lunch "rush hour" crowd at Aikenhead's, about 300 businessmen, students, and enroute passersby, quietly mills through the five floors of the hardware emporium.

"I've been shopping at Aikenhead's for 25 years," says Melvin Grayson. "The service is great and the staff looks after you, but doesn't bother you. I've become great friends with the staff in the tool department†this place is just like home."

Aikenhead's 158-year recipe for success has been simple: selection and service.

"People don't come to Aikenhead's because they'll save 50 cents off the ticket price, but for the convenience and service," claims store manager Everett Demmink, who started with Aikenhead's as an interior display coordinator 31 years ago.

In fact, the 15,000 square-foot extension of hardware is a handyman's haven. If you need to cut, saw, nail, or screw something in place, Aikenhead's has the tool for you. Even some long-forgotten items can be found here. Says Demmink: "A man came in asking for bed fasteners complaining he hadn't been able to find any. Sure enough we had them in stock, even though hardly anyone uses them these days."

Housewares, a dirty word around Aikenhead's years ago, has been the store's largest expanding department. The paint section is a store in itself. The quality paints, wide assortment of brushes and aisles of painting accessories found here, enable any do-it-yourselfer to paint like a pro. But without dispute, it's Aikenhead's nuts and bolts selection that saws the competition in half.

Stock includes butterfly bolts, toggle, lag and eyebolts, acorn nuts, screws, cotter pins and nails ranging from oval heads to countersunk head hinges.

Rocco di Giovanni spends his lunch hour away from work at Torno Engineering shopping at Aikenhead's. He says apart from the store's convenient location, the selection is the best in town.

"I'm in the construction business," di Giovanni says, "and I know my tools. Here, I find everything I want. One-stop shopping. Plus, if I want to buy only one nail and not the whole package, I can do that here."

If convenience attracts downtown workers, service is definitely why Stanley Wilkins, a resident of the city's suburb of Willowdale, has been making the trek into Toronto for the past 55 years.

"My father used to take me downtown when he'd pick up his paycheque. We'd visit all the hardware stores in the city and end up at Aikenhead's where we'd eventually buy what we needed.

"I bought my first set of power tools at Aikenhead's," he says. "Although Wilkins admits he's tried other hardware stores, he lumps those as "advertisers of sales — but when you get there, they're out of stock and still expensive."

Something that isn't out of stock at Aikenhead's is friendly service. And 75-year-old, part-timer, "Old" George Fewtrelle tops the bill in this category. Service is a four-letter word to George and that means fast.

"People who come in during their lunch hour are in a rush and want to be served right away. I'm glad I know where everything is. These people don't have time to waste so I keep an eye out to see if the line at the cash register gets too long. Then I open another cash.

"Often they ask a lot of questions, and want to be answered in less than five minutes. You have to tell them nicely that you don't have time to answer them all, but that if they'll call later, you'll be happy to help," says Fewtrelle, who adds that many of his customers do call back after 3:00 p.m., "which is when I tell them to call."

Questions range from advice on how to install a humidifier to what to do when fuses blow from an air conditioner. "I really enjoy my job," he adds. "I'm here for life."

Another dedicated employee is Keith Jameson, who's been serving Aikenhead's customers for 30 years, but he admits he misses the "old days." "Today, customers are more demanding and more in a hurry. We have a very knowledgeable staff so we can service them. Many of our employees have worked on the same floor for years and have become specialized in a particular area."

One such person is Peer Lesyk. He's worked on the second floor (fasteners and tools) for 31 years. He's as much of a fixture on the floor as the 19th century pillars dividing the various aisles.

Most customers are on a first-name basis with the patient, soft-spoken floor manager. Others who have left the city often write or phone Lesyk from across Canada. "Sometimes I get people from as far away as Vancouver coming in and saying they were recommended to come to Aikenhead's by past customers," he says.

Why this customer loyalty? Lesyk says it's the after sales service that keeps them coming back. "Our store was built on service and that continues after a sale."

Aikenhead's solid service reputation appeals to new customers too. Although most lunch-time shoppers tend to buy smaller carrying items, Cheong Lee, who lives in Scarborough, but works at a downtown branch of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, couldn't resist picking up "a deal" on a lawnmower.

"I was taking a walk when I spotted a sale on lawnmowers. I bought one yesterday and now my colleague came today to buy one.\Why wait to go home and shop when I can do it on my lunch hour and save money too?" he says.

Carol Wroyson says she hasn't got time to shop on weekends, and besides, "other hardware stores can't compare in size to Aikenheads."

Others come just to browse and "see what's new or on sale today," says Demmink.

The centre isle on the main floor is filled with sales items ranging from batteries to small kitchen appliances, and changes daily.

"We don't believe in advertising," says Demmink. "We're not catering to the shopper who wants a dollar off. Our customer is the one who wants quality products and selection."

Aikenhead's knows its customers' needs and wants, adds Demmink. "We tried selling wallpaper, but failed and we don't bother with sporting goods. Hardware is what we're good at."

Men make up the majority of Aikenhead's clientele, although just this year more women have visited the store in search of home renovation supplies. "Some of the women who come in know exactly what they want," says Demmink. "Others come here on errands for their husbands, but women have definitely become important customers."

Twenty percent of Aikenhead's business is done through business accounts. Its oldest customer has been the Ontario provincial government. Account books dating back to 1830 list numerous prominent Torontonians that shopped on credit at Aikenhead's for such popular items were snuffers, cooking stoves, bell pulls, hearth brushes and candlesticks.

Some customers included Toronto's first mayor, William Lyon Mackenzie, chief justice Sir John Beverley Robinson and Sir John Colbourne, the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada.

The Farmers' Banking Co. and Parliament House were also frequent shoppers as was Sir Henry Pellatt, original owner and builder of Casa Loma. While building his famous castle, Pellatt purchased hundreds of items from stable fittings, doors and locks to gold-plated faucets for his bathroom.

Says Demmink: "He had run up a long bill, but when it was time to pay, Aikenhead's didn't receive a dime. His invoice is still outstanding."

From snuffers and bucksaws to glue guns and electric drills, Aikenhead's has withstood the change of time. Never in the red, the "largest hardware store in town," went from being an ironmongery in 1831 to a hardware haven holding roughly 42,000 items.

So even when the doors at 17 Temperance St. close to the ghosts-of-shoppers-past, new and old customers can rest assured that, despite its new location and new look, Aikenhead's intends to abide by the golden rule that has made it prosper for more than 150 years: service and selection.