Coast to Coast Hardware Stores history

Last Updated on March 5, 2023 by Dave Farquhar

I saw a photo of an old Coast to Coast hardware store damaged in a tornado recently. That got me wondering what happened to Coast to Coast, and what was the Coast to Coast Hardware Stores history?

I remember the town I lived in when I was in kindergarten had a tiny number of stores. It had a Radio Shack, a Dairy Queen, one of the first Wal-Mart stores, a P.N. Hirsch, and a Coast to Coast. And there wasn’t much else. I recall the distinctive typeface that resembled wrenches and nuts. That sign was a fixture in small towns throughout Missouri, and much of the midwest.

For people over the age of about 40 who grew up in the heartland, when they think of an old-fashioned hardware store, an old Coast to Coast store is probably what comes to their mind. I remember jumping into Dad’s powder blue 1976 Dodge pickup truck and riding to Coast to Coast to get hardware for his weekend projects. In that town, a trip to Coast to Coast might be the most exciting thing that happened that day.

Founding

Coast to Coast hardware stores history
This old hardware store in Centralia, Wash., still features an old Coast to Coast sign, along with current True Value signage. Photo credit: Joe Mabel

Minneapolis-based Coast to Coast was, in spite of its name, primarily a midwestern chain. Three brothers, Arthur, Maurice, and Louis Melamed, founded the chain in 1928. It boomed after World War II, and at its peak, it had 1,200 stores in 26 states. Coast to Coast made it as far east as Ohio and as far west as California.

What made Coast to Coast unique was standardization. The stores had a planned layout, 12 departments, inventory determined by the central office, and a limited number of brands to improve turnover. It was a franchise, but it behaved like a chain.

Decline

The Melameds retired in 1962 and sold the company to an investment house. But without the Melameds, Coast to Coast lost loyalty. Other wholesalers could undercut Coast to Coast’s prices, and that meant other stores could offer lower prices. When the competition was bigger and had better prices, consumers weren’t as loyal to the store. Dealers didn’t stay as loyal either.

In 1983, Coast to Coast started opening large home improvement stores, precursors to the large big-box home improvement centers of today. Modern chains like Lowe’s and Home Depot weren’t on the radar. St. Louis-based Central Hardware and Kansas City-based Payless Cashways were of more immediate concern. But Coast to Coast’s transition wasn’t successful. By 1990, Coast to Coast had lost 200 of 1,000 stores and was in bankruptcy.

Mergers

In July 1990, Servistar, of Butler, PA, purchased Coast to Coast for $25 million. The combined company operated stores under both names, and the combined company’s revenues grew. But the threat of larger competitors still loomed, and by the mid 1990s, it was searching for another merger partner.

Servistar Coast to Coast and Cotter & Company independently came to the same conclusion, that merging with one another was each company’s best option going forward. In July 1997, Servistar Coast to Coast merged with Cotter & Company, the parent company of True Value. That spelled the end of the Coast to Coast brand, as the combined company rebranded its stores under the True Value name. Some old former Coast to Coast locations still have their old signage, but officially, they are all True Value stores today.

Legacy

There is no book specifically about Coast to Coast, but Bob Vereen’s book Surviving In Spite of Everything: A Postwar history of the Hardware Industry dedicates a lot of space to Coast to Coast, its rise and fall and what other companies had to do to compete with it.

If you found this post informative or helpful, please share it!

7 thoughts on “Coast to Coast Hardware Stores history

  • April 7, 2018 at 10:15 am
    Permalink

    Truly miss Coast to Coast store. Still remember my dad buy me bike was 12 year old back 1975. So sad why old classic stores . Were good old days. Wish put together a book on history of Coast to Coast store or say Hardware store.

    • April 9, 2018 at 7:40 am
      Permalink

      There is one. I added a link in the text at the end to a book about the hardware store industry in the United States after World War II. It dedicates a lot of space to Coast to Coast and goes into the reasons why the industry changed.

  • May 30, 2018 at 7:22 am
    Permalink

    Hello, from Montana. I enjoyed your write-up about Coast to Coast stores. It brought back good memories.

    I was born and raised in eastern Montana. My family lived on a somewhat remote ranch. We usually took a trip once a month to a town about an hour’s drive from us, for groceries and other supplies. There was a Coast to Coast store downtown. I remember it had an old, squeaky hardwood floor, and the building was divided into two rooms, separated by a large open doorway where the floor inclined slightly into the next room. One room held hardware and parts, guns and ammunition, toys and bicycles. The other side of the store was mainly for kitchen and household items such as pots and pans, small appliances and gifts.

    Usually my dad would go to Coast to Coast while my mom shopped in nearby stores for groceries and clothing. We kids loved to go with Dad so that we could look at toys bicycles, etc., and my brothers would buy BBs for their BB guns. The man who owned the store was friendly and a good salesman, and I remember my parents talking about how they had to be careful to compare prices with the other local hardware store there before buying.

    Many of the small eastern Montana towns in our area had Coast to Coast stores. Our local small hometown, where we lived during the school year after our country school closed, eventually got one, too. I wish I could remember the brand name of the new bicycle I got it for my birthday as a kid in about 1963. It was metallic teal green and white, and it had a headlight, reflectors on the fenders, and a two tone green and white seat. My dad also got me a basket to put on it. Loved that bike, and had it for many years.

    Those were truly the good old days. I wish kids today could have experienced those old hardware stores.

  • November 6, 2018 at 10:41 pm
    Permalink

    I have acquired a coast to coast Marque series 10 speed touring bike. It is a mixtie and I wondered if I could get any information about it. It has the numbers C80891 on the rear dropout, then under that in what looks like hand written numbers 8665 This bike is mostly well made and has deluxe components. Any info would be appreciated. Thanks !!

  • November 9, 2018 at 9:25 pm
    Permalink

    coast to coast in my home town bend, oregon sure seems like a long time ago.

  • February 20, 2019 at 12:42 am
    Permalink

    There was a Coast to Coast store in Cut Bank, MT and I learned that Malta, MT had one as well. Two of my classmates parents ran the one Cut Bank in 1970’s. There was a bunch of sporterized military rifles for sale in the store probably from WWII that a WIA vet did up. I know the store was still going in the early 1980’s but don’t know when it went out of business as I went off to “bigger and better things”, as us high school grads of the era used to say.

  • November 11, 2019 at 7:53 am
    Permalink

    Correction to the footprint of Coast to Coast only as far east as Ohio. I owned and operated a Coast to Coast Hardware franchise in Clemmons, North Carolina from 1980 until we sold the store in 1996. Our store was their first on the east coast and in fact, made them truly coast to coast. Following our store, several opened on the east coast including in Rocky Mount, VA; Jonesville, NC; Fort Mill, SC and Winston-Salem, NC to name a few.

Comments are closed.