Robinsons Hardware In Hudson Closes Its Doors After 150 Years

A hardware store in Hudson that's been around since the Gilded Age is calling it quits. WBZ's Chaiel Schaffel went there on their last day.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This rattle is the swan song of a paint mixer
at Robinson's Hardware in Hudson, before meeting its final fate
at the auction block. The store, open for one hundred
and fifty years, is shodding.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
You look at the parking lot, it's full of cars,
which on a normal day in the last two or
three months, that wouldn't be the case.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Kim Underwood is one of the shop's more recent bosses.
He says business has slid for years. Big box stores
have poached the company's customers, Covid moved shoppers online, and
winters have been.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Mild icemelt snowshovels, roof raight. We just didn't have sales
for so.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
It's time to say goodbye. Loyal regulars have been stopping
into which the Underwood's well. Kim is retiring along with
some of his thirty plus workers, but many need new jobs.
He says. The thing that will help other small stores
avoid the grave is faithful customers.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
I would encourage anybody to be loyal, you know, shop local.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
Kyle Shaffle WBZ, Boston's news radio