Pfeiffer’s Hardware in Mount Pleasant is suffering, like so many local small businesses. But owner Todd Pfeiffer is trying a new tactic to attract neighborhood customers: He’s pleading with them.
“The economy is hurting most of us, I’m sure, but the fact is, without an increase in sales, our store will become yet another empty storefront on Mount Pleasant Street,” Pfeiffer wrote in a recent Mount Pleasant Main Street newsletter.
Pfeiffer and Adriana DiFranco opened their store on Mount Pleasant Street in December 2003 during the housing boom. It is one of a handful of local hardware stores that remain open in the District — joining Glover Park Hardware, Frager’s on Capitol Hill and a collection of Ace locations.
But Pfeiffer’s is “dangerously close to insolvency,” he told neighbors. He appealed for their support, for his store and others. Without it, he said, the shops cannot endure.
“The stores that you do appreciate, show them you will appreciate them or they won’t be there,” the owner said Thursday.
The Mount Pleasant shop owner is not alone. Small businesses fight for customers citywide, and many fail. The Trover Shop, a family-owned and operated Capitol Hill bookstore, is the latest — it shuts down today after more than 50 years.
Terry Lynch, a Mount Pleasant resident and director of the Downtown Cluster of Congregations, described Pfeiffer’s as an “anchor of neighborhood retail.”
“He runs a good business,” Lynch said. “I go there. But the average homeowner is not spending a lot of money there. It’s nuts and bolts and paintbrushes. It’s hard to survive on that, particularly with the big competition he’s up against.”
Pfeiffer said he is doing what he can to compete with the big box hardware chains. For example, he said he will soon unveil online ordering — buy a product online, pick it up at the store and Pfeiffer will match Home Depot’s prices.
But is that the answer? The row house owners in Mount Pleasant hire contractors for their renovation needs, neighborhood observers say. The lower-income residents and immigrants, mostly apartment dwellers, need very little hardware.
Pleas for business may help in the short term, said Laurie Collins, a longtime Mount Pleasant resident who recently left for Cathedral Heights. But Pfeiffer needs a new strategy to survive.
“That to me is desperate,” Collins said. “Running a business really takes work.”
