Greg Phelps, on right, owner of Mt. Airy Maryland Ace Hardware, with his two team members.
The Ace spring show happening now in Texas feels sorta like a family affair.
People talk to you as soon as you say howdy.
“Our biggest seller is paint,” said Greg Phelps, owner of Mt. Airy Maryland Ace Hardware,” then he paused and said, “oh, and Stihl chain saws. Big.”
He and his team were three among thousands of Ace dealers attending the Ace spring show, looking for ideas, deals and anything helpful to their stores.
The feeling carried along the aisles in an expansive convention hall, at the Henry B. Gonzalez Center, in San Antonio.
Those attendees not taking in the warm southwestern breezes coming over the famed River Walk in downtown San Antonio, enjoyed their own spring-fling at the show.
At the far end of the convention center, near the Retail Center Training stage, Marty Warnke, GM of Palm Springs Ace, and his team member Clint Berger, operations manager, talked about what they were looking for: “Everything really,” Warnke laughed.
“But in Palm Springs, we do 20% of our business in patios, everyone seemingly has a pool in our community, so that’s who we serve, that’s really our specialty, what makes us special.”
That word “special” seemed to reverberate. It spoke to the theme of the Ace keynote earlier in the morning.