Ayers Variety & Hardware officially closed its doors yesterday (Sunday), but not before customers gave a fond sendoff to the 78-year-old Westover hardware store.
The store was busy with shoppers yesterday morning, making final purchases at the business that has stood in The Westover Shopping Center since 1948. Two posters with notes and signatures from customers were still hanging in the windows this morning.
“An extraordinary small business with kind help and support always. This community will miss you,” one customer wrote.
“Doesn’t seem real. Say it ain’t so!” another message says. “44 years and in Ayers every week for something essential! Enjoy retirement.”
One Ayers regular described a bittersweet scene during the store’s final hours in business.
“Ayers was a consistent go-to for us for years,” customer Jennifer Owens told ARLnow. “Walking those mostly empty aisles yesterday was quite sad, and people were reminiscing as they wandered through. I heard a lot of people thanking the staff and owners for the years of service.”
So far, no information is available on what will replace Ayers at 5853 Washington Blvd. Signage was still up as of today, although co-owner Kristy Peterkin previously told ARLnow that the store has to be broom clean by July 31.
While the business is now closed, Ayers Hardware posted on Facebook that it will remain active on social media.
“I will keep this page active so I can post potential sources for some of the hard-to-find items we carried,” an admin wrote on Saturday. “So grateful to you all for the outpouring of love since we announced.”
Over the decades, Ayers Variety and Hardware built a reputation around friendly, knowledgeable staff who embraced the “small town feel” of the surrounding neighborhood. Spending time to help customers solve household problems and track down hard-to-find items, employees connected with generations of shoppers who knew the retailer as a local fixture.
Peterkin said she and her brother, Keith Kaplan, decided a few years ago that they wanted to leave when their lease expired. They originally thought they’d be able to find a new owner for the store, but Peterkin said those plans fell through at the last minute.
“We’re sad to leave [Ayers] behind, because we really thought we were going to find a buyer, and that this would go on, but it just didn’t work out,” she said.
For many in the Westover neighborhood, the store is gone but not forgotten.
“Thank you for serving as an anchor of this community for years,” a customer wrote. “We will miss you.”
