It’s all here, and it’s all backwards!
– Homer Simpson (hyping the Leftorium)
We’re mourning the imminent loss of two great local businesses.
Seven Corners Hardware, a St Paul institution for 80 years, just announced they will close after clearing out their inventory this spring. Its location on West Seventh Street is suddenly a hot commodity, and will be redeveloped. (So strange! I remember West Seventh as a dodgy area back in the day.)
As I’ve mentioned, Seven Corners was The Place to go for unusual or specialized items that you can’t find at the large chain stores. If you couldn’t find it there, it probably couldn’t be had. They’ve saved us on several occasions, and I love the place. It’s an old-school hardware store packed to the gills; there’s probably as much product in there as in a Home Depot, but in about a quarter of the space. And the staff! Super knowledgeable and so great. D’oh!
Double dukes! Or d’oh. Whatever.
But that’s not the only d’oh. I was late to the news that Mill End Textiles (only 45 years old!) is also closing. That clearance has been ongoing since November, but I’m still planning a run over to my local shop this week. Mill End has been one of my mother’s and my main fabric sources since a long dang time ago. I picked up our bedroom curtain fabric there last year (no, still not done–don’t look at me!!), and blithely mentioned shopping there in a recent sofa post. That’s when a friend shared the sad news.
Not for much longer, it isn’t!
When a shop has a store-closing sale, I feel a little weird shopping there if I didn’t support the place when it was a going concern. But we’ve been to both places so frequently that I have no compunction about picking over the remaining inventory for deals. Plus, they do need to close out the inventory, so here are links to their sales — you don’t even need to be local to benefit from the Seven Corners clearance!
- Seven Corners: 5% off everything on their website (as of today–surely that will keep going down) and an inventory clearance sale going on in store.
- Mill End Textiles: Everything on extreme clearance, in stores only.
At least S.R. Harris is still in play for fabric! Long may they continue. But does anyone local have a recommendation for obscure hardware? Once Seven Corners closes, we’re going to be at a bit of a loss.
