“Could you sell me some stain?” asked Jesse King’s neighbor, walking into the shop where Jesse made and sold cabinets. “I started a small wood project at home, and I need some supplies. Also, do you have any sandpaper?”
Jesse wasn’t in the business of selling woodworking supplies. Yet for questions like these, he was happy to help his neighbors. “Yes, I do. Take a look at my shelf and tell me what you need.”
More and more people asked Jesse if they could buy from his woodworking supply inventory. Then they expanded their requests into other departments. “I need a shovel and a pitchfork. And could you order me a garden hose?”
Again, Jesse said yes. That yes changed his vocation. Within a few years, he was no longer a cabinetmaker, but a storekeeper.
The store he started is Shady Lane Hardware in Dauphin County, central Pennsylvania. Jesse and his wife Naomi began it in 1993 and operated it almost thirty years. They sold it in 2022 to their son Levi King and his wife Lynda.
The store employs four full-time workers (including the owners) and six parttime employees. It has 11,000 square feet of retail space and 5,400 square feet of warehousing. Neatly-stacked shelves feature power tools, paint supplies, lawn and garden tools, plumbing items, electrical supplies, and fencing parts. In addition, Shady Lane Hardware responds to popular demand by stocking housewares. An upstairs room holds toys, clocks, hats, boots, sewing supplies, books, and much more. Having such a variety of inventory pulls customers in. There’s something for all ages and interests. Like some other stores of its type, it has earned the nickname, “The Amish Walmart.”
Customers Demand
The King family is grateful for how customer demand provided guidance for developing the business. Jesse moved his cabinet shop from Lancaster County to Dauphin County in 1989. Because there was no other hardware store near enough for horse-and-buggy travel, customers came to Jesse. In a way of speaking, customers started the store themselves by asking for what they needed.
Jesse’s first storefront was the basement of his cabinet shop; when a customer came, Jesse would leave his work and run downstairs. Next, the store expanded into a nearby shed, then into a new addition built onto the shed.
Jesse and Naomi remember some of the challenges of having a store at their home. It wasn’t easy to offer good customer service and to protect the boundaries of family life, especially over mealtimes. Customers would arrive while the family was eating. Somebody had to leave his or her food and run out to the store more than one hundred yards away. The customer might stay five minutes or thirty minutes. If the customer asked questions a young storekeeper couldn’t answer, a buzzer in the house gave the signal. Then another family member would step onto the house porch and holler across the distance to answer questions.
The store was nestled inside farm buildings for its first eleven years. In 2004, it was time to build a new store off the farm.
Jesse designed a building that seemed the right size. Yet during the two decades since, the store has again expanded several times. Today, the store’s space is maxed out. Levi, who watched the store growing during his youth, summarizes his thoughts about expansion. “When buying a business, keep in mind how you’re going to prepare for additions and growth.” His current plan is to expand into the business next door, which is planning to move away.
These expansions came in response to customer demand. Yet Levi and Lynda are aware that they can’t stock everything. If a customer asks for an item once, they can order it in to meet the need. If a customer asks two or three times, Levi considers stocking the item if he has space for it. If he doesn’t have space, he needs to decide to remove a different item.
Challenging as those tradeoffs are, Levi and Lynda enjoy managing them. Lynda explains how important the inventory choices are. “If new products come, we need to stock them, or people will go somewhere else.” For example, customers have an eye for the latest edition of songbooks and cookbooks. “We can’t please everybody, but we can try to please,” she concludes.
Helping Hands
During the store’s growth, the King family is grateful for help they received not only from customers, but also from others. Early on, Jesse received guidance from Gid King. Gid had a hardware store in Lancaster County. He was happy to support Jesse during the challenges of startup.
For example, he pointed Jesse to a helpful supplier he never would have found otherwise. This supplier’s three-story warehouse held contractor tools, lawn and garden supplies, and other hardware.
This vendor’s warehouse was memorable partly because it was located deep in the city of Philadelphia. Shopping in that crime-ridden downtown was an adventure. Approaching the fence surrounding the warehouse, a would-be customer blows his truck’s horn. The proprietor opens the gate, lets the customer’s truck in, then locks the gate after it. Inside the secure perimeter, Jesse would typically select $10,000 to $15,000 of merchandise. After paying for it, the gate would open to let him out.
Even after the store was established, it benefited from ongoing support from volunteers. When the store moved off the farm, many community members and friends helped with the enormous task. A crew of volunteers emptied the shelves into totes, loaded the totes onto a trailer, and drove to the new location half a mile away. Jesse stood in the new store to dump the totes onto numbered shelves.
The move went so smoothly that the store was closed only a day.
Helpful as that method was, it had its drawbacks. Jesse remembers the challenge of the next business day. “Customers came, and we had them root through the piles. It took us a long time to go through everything and hang it up how we wanted it.”
Years later, Jesse navigated another instance of handling a massive amount of inventory. He had acquired a store in a neighboring town. How would he stock its shelves with new products?
Instead of using volunteers, Jesse chose to accept the free service offered by the supplier of the inventory. Twenty-three pallets of inventory arrived. Each was piled six feet high. Along with them came a crew that knew what to do. Workers marked every shelf then arranged everything from the pallets onto shelves. At this new location, opening day was more relaxed than it had been after the other move.
Staying out of the Way
As the current owner of Shady Lane Hardware, Levi King is grateful to receive help from his dad.
Jesse gives several kinds of help. He helps by working in the store and also by staying out of the way. Jesse’s ability to give his son space came from an experience he had years ago. A few years after he was married, he gave up his masonry job and moved onto his dad’s farm to take over the dairy herd. Jesse’s dad planned to raise the crops while Jesse and Naomi milked the cows.
Unfortunately, father and son didn’t create the clarity they needed. Schedule expectations weren’t clear. Jesse thought he would have some weekends off from the milking, but he didn’t. Pay expectations weren’t clear. Jesse received part of the milk check, yet he was never sure what part.
Even boundaries in the barn weren’t clear. Jesse’s dad walked nearby during milking time. “That cow is not milked out right,” he might remark, “and it looks like that one needs to be treated.”
Not surprisingly, the partnership between Jesse and his dad lasted only a year. Jesse relocated to his previous house and resumed his previous job.
That painful experience rings in Jesse’s mind when he pictures how to transition Shady Lane Hardware on to the next generation. He could easily find things to complain about if he chose to do so. “Levi has changed everything around since I owned it,” Jesse remarks. Yet Jesse makes himself relax and not give Levi instructions, and Levi is grateful for his dad’s attitude.
Levi is also grateful that the job his dad opened for him both fits him well and fills a crucial place in the community. “It can be a ministry,” Levi summarizes. Yet even a ministry needs boundaries. Levi admits that one of his challenges as an owner is to find the proper work/life balance.
For example, a store benefits from staying organized. Levi likes the challenge. Yet getting things into place can be endless. “At times, I should leave things for another day instead of thinking everything has to be done now,” he says. It can be a challenge for him to go home for mealtimes. In those moments, he reminds himself, “This is just a business, and my family is much more important. I’ll just go home.”
Fortunately, the store doesn’t always separate the family. “It’s like a second home to us,” he says. “Our eight-year-old daughter takes care of customers and runs the cash register better than most of us.”
As the next generation rises to help at Shady Lane Hardware, current owners Levi and Lynda are grateful to continue the momentum. The store that began when Jesse served his neighbors gathered momentum as the years passed. Today, it fills a crucial role in the community and is becoming a family tradition.
Shady Lane Hardware is located at 201 Orchard Road, Spring Glen, PA 17978.
Myron K. Sauder lives in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, with his wife Sarah and seven children. His interests focus on teaching and writing. At home, he enjoys time with family, singing, and reading.