2 longtime True Value stores go ‘truly independent,’ rebrand as Bob’s Hometown Hardware

Tim Harty, The Business Times

When national hardware-store retailer True Value filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy and was acquired by Fort Wayne, Indiana-based Do It Best in the fall of 2024, it opened the door for a Grand Junction couple to honor the man who helped bring four True Value stores to the Grand Valley.

Mark and Jeannette Neal, co-owners of the Orchard Mesa True Value, 2686 U.S. Highway 50, and Grand Junction True Value, 1838 N. 12th St., ended those stores’ association with True Value and renamed them Bob’s Hometown Hardware in August.

That’s Bob as in Bob Frederick, Jeannette’s father, who along with other family members opened the Orchard Mesa True Value in 1983 and the 12th Street True Value in 1991.

Jeannette said Bob had to step away from owning and operating his True Value stores in 2019 because of poor health, so she and Mark moved back to the Grand Valley to take over the Orchard Mesa and 12th Street stores.

They didn’t know then that an opportunity would arise to carry on Bob Frederick’s legacy in a more direct way: putting his name on those two stores.

“He’s worked his entire life for these stores, so our plan when we came here was to carry on his legacy,” Jeannette said. “And then, True Value filed for bankruptcy a couple years ago, and when that happened, things were kind of up in the air. We weren’t sure which way it was going to go, so Mark and I, at that point, kind of made plans to just become truly independent.”

All individual True Value stores are independently owned, but the association with True Value comes with purchasing requirements and some operational constraints.

That’s why it’s important for the Neals to make the “truly independent” distinction. Their two stores are no longer beholden to any direction from True Value.

“We can purchase from whoever we want,” Jeannette said, adding the goal as a truly local store is to look out for the customer. “That’s really what we want to do is be able to buy from whoever we can buy from with the best price, so we can pass that on to the customers.”

The buying exception, of course, is they no longer can carry True Value-branded items, and that’s OK with the Neals. They’ve lined up other vendors to get equivalent alternatives in quality and price.

“We have comparable items for anything that we can’t sell through True Value,” she said.

Minus the items that True Value previously provided, customers will see a whole lot of what they’ve always seen on shelves and the sales floor of the stores.

All of the employees were retained, too, and Jeannette said customers can expect the same personable, informed customer service that has been a staple from the stores’ personnel.

“As an independent hardware store, that’s all we have going for us against the big-box stores is our customer service,” she said. “We really try to drive that home with our employees. We’ve got to have good customer service, because we don’t have the best prices compared to Lowe’s and Home Depot. You know, we can’t match their prices usually, so it is our customer service that drives it home for us, for sure.”

And he’s not an employee, but another friendly face remains at the Orchard Mesa store, where frequent customers have come to know Murphy, the store cat. He’s sticking around, too, “hasn’t been evicted,” Jeannette was happy to report.

“Murphy’s pretty popular,” she added.

A few new things of note

With the Orchard Mesa and 12th Street Grand Junction True Value hardware stores becoming Bob’s Hometown Hardware stores, the name change itself is the biggest change.

That got announced to Grand Junction at the 12th Street location on Aug. 21 when the new sign was installed.

Another significant change is coming to the rewards program, which will be called “Bob’s Bucks.” Bob’s Hometown Hardware co-owner Jeannette Neal said the rebranded stores will have more freedom than they had when they offered True Value Rewards.

“It’s a rewards program that we have complete control over,” she said of Bob’s Bucks. “So, you know, we can come up with triple-point Tuesdays. We can do whatever we want with this rewards program.”

Bob’s Hometown Hardware also will have a new website. During an Aug. 25 interview, Neal said it wasn’t operational yet, but it will be ready soon.

Once it’s running, customers will be able to make online orders and pay online, then pick up the items at the store or do curbside pickup.

Weren’t there 4 True Value stores?

Indeed, there are two other True Value hardware stores – Peachtree True Value, 2963 North Ave. in Grand Junction; and Fruita True Value, 1690 U.S. Highway 6&50 – that remain True Value stores.

Those stores are owned by Cathy Frederick, wife of Bob Frederick, who once owned all four True Value stores in the Grand Valley before relinquishing them in 2019 because of health issues.

Other family connections

Jeannette Neal is the daughter of Bob Frederick and stepdaughter of Cathy Frederick.

Jeannette said her brother, Rick Frederick, and his wife, Julie Frederick, were in business with Bob for many years, and they retired from that and opened Cahnyr’s Creations, 2650 North Ave., Suite 119.

“They do engraving and printing and all kinds of stuff, so they’re the ones that are helping us get our brand out there,” Jeannette said “He’s doing all of our basket redesigns, and he’s doing uniforms for us, and so that’s just kind of another extension of the family for that. … I just wanted to give a shout out to them.”

Jeannette added her daughter Hannah designed the store logo for Bob’s Hometown Hardware.