Your Local, Family-Owned Hardware Store

Serving San Francisco, CA Since the 1920s

Cole Hardware has been around since the 1920s, when it first opened to serve the Cole Valley neighborhood of San Francisco. Our company’s founder, Dave Karp, purchased the store in 1959. He ran the entire operation as a one-man band out of the tiny space that is now the warehouse and storage area for our Cole Street store. Dave had a genuine desire to help everyone who walked through his door—ideally making them laugh along the way! Cole Hardware thrived under his stewardship, and eventually things got busy enough that his wife, Margie, started spending her days as the store cashier. Dave and his little store grew to become a much-loved mainstay of the community. His approach to running his business could be summed up by the sign he hung over the cash register, with this motto: “There are no strangers here, just friends we haven’t met.”

https://www.colehardware.com