We totally love hanging out at hardware stores (seriously!) — especially Roberts Hardware. Here’s our chat with owner Steve Smith. Dig! (Yeah, all the pretty singing goddesses go to Roberts …)
Haight Street Voice: Your grandpa founded Roberts in 1931?
Steve Smith (co-owner with brother Bruce): Yes, selling baskets, brooms, whatever he could find to sell. This is actually the third location, and they moved in here in 1964. When my father was a real little kid he lived on Shrader, and then they moved to Cole and that’s where he grew up.
HSV: What’s your earliest memory of tooling around in the hardware store?
SS: Probably coming to see my grandmother, who lived right around the corner. We would go pick up lunch at her house and then walk over and they’d run the store when I was really little.
HSV: Love the thought of you running around here at 1 year old! Did you love being at the hardware store?
SS: Yeah, I actualIy like it. I like being with people and interacting with them, so it’s good.
HSV: The message of the Haight, the whole counterculture thing, is it still here you think?
SS: My family was here before that, during that, and now after that. But yeah, the feeling is still here. It’s still a very diverse neighborhood, people get along for the most part. Lots of new places opening. You know what’s really nice, the new middle eastern restaurant, Abu Salim. The music store closing was really a shame. It was a nice group of people in there. But the owner’s retiring, spending more time with his family.
HSV: What would you like to read in Haight Street Voice?
SS: Current event things that are happ
ening in the neighborhood, like the bocce ball court opening, and Flywheel opening, the coffee shop right next to it. It’s changing the area and making it more friendly. I’d love more music, more cabaret licenses for the bars. When I was growing up there were probably 4 or 5 and they’ve all gone away.
HSV: What would you like to say to the good people of the Haight?
HSV: “What would you like to say to the good people of the Haight?”
Steve Smith: “Keep havin’ fun and keep comin’ back!”
