Orchard Supply Hardware Comes to San Carlos!

Competition for Home Depot.

It has been quite a few years since The Home Depot opened up shop in San Carlos, taking over what was the old Lenkurt GTE building on Old County Road. Over the years, they have enjoyed the enviable position of being the only mega home improvement warehouse in the immediate area, and the argument can be made that they directly or indirectly put most local hardware stores out of business. The smaller family owned stores simply could not compete on the price and volume of products that Home Depot offered, unless they specialized in a niche that made them somewhat immune to this sledgehammer of competition.

That doesn't mean that The Home Depot was necessarily the right solution for San Carlos. Having owned a home in San Carlos for 25 years, I can not possibly count the number of times that I have been inside that store, so I know a thing or two about the shopping experience at this (and any other) Home Depot — and it's not generally a positive one. Apparently I'm not alone in this opinion, as there is an entire website dedicated to the general dislike of the store. The name kind of speaks for itself:  http://www.HomeDepotSucks

As I've written on this site numerous times in the past, I have longed for the day that a competitor like Lowes or Orchard Supply Hardware would find their way to the City of Good Living to give San Carlos residents another option to purchase their home improvement goods, and to give Home Depot a wake-up call to finally improve their abysmal customer service.

That day is finally here…

To the delight of many do-it-yourself'ers in San Carlos and surrounding communities, Orchard Supply Hardware officially opened its doors in San Carlos yesterday:

Located at 360 Industrial Road in San Carlos (right across from the new PAMF Medical Center), the new Orchard Supply Hardware is the exact blueprint of what you would expect from their stores — spacious, impeccably clean, and very well organized.

I shopped their today to get a replacement smoke detector and some other odds and ends, and true to form, there was no shortage of people who were willing to go out of their way to help me find what I needed. That service is simply worth the extra mile drive.

But as good as Orchard Supply Hardware is, there are still times when it just makes more sense to get what you need from Home Depot, and this development is not all bad news for them. Every business improves from good competition (especially real estate), and I expect (or hope) that this will be the impetus for Home Depot to make their shopping experience better. It appears that they have many more people working the floor lately, so that's a good start.

Grand Opening: June 25.

Although they have already opened their doors for business, the new Orchard store has a Customer Grand Opening planned for June 25th, according to one of the employees that I spoke with. There were no details available, but I am sure it will be worth checking out.

Welcome to San Carlos, Orchard Supply Hardware!!  I certainly hope the home improvement shoppers in the area patronize this store, and make their decision to set up shop in San Carlos a worthwhile one.