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Hathaway's ACE Hardware & Fresh Market

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Galva, IL
Hathaway's ACE Hardware & Fresh Market

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One stop grocery & hardware store, locally owned and operated.

11/02/2026

MEANWHILE, AT HATHAWAY’S…
Episode 40: The Putty Knife Has Seen Things

There are moments in retail when you discover a problem and think:

I don’t get paid enough for this.

And then there are moments when you discover a problem and think:

There is absolutely no amount of money that would make this okay.

Today we’re talking about the men’s bathroom.

More specifically…

THE BO**ER WALL.

Yes.

Boogers.

On the wall.

Beside the toilet.

Not one accidental situation.

We’re talking about dried, crusted, apparently load-bearing boogers that had become one with the building.

And here’s the part I cannot get past:

THERE IS LITERALLY TOILET PAPER RIGHT THERE.

RIGHT. THERE.

You are already sitting beside an entire roll of paper specifically designed for the disposal of bodily substances.

Yet at some point, a grown human being apparently looked at the toilet paper…

looked at their finger…

looked at our wall…

and thought:

Wall. Definitely the wall.

WHO RAISED YOU?!

At first, I tried cleaning them like a civilized person.

Absolutely not.

These things had cured.

They had been aged.

Seasoned.

Possibly load-bearing.

So eventually I did what any experienced hardware-store employee would do.

I GOT A PUTTY KNIFE.

And you know what?

Worked like a charm.

Which means I can now confidently add another item to the list of uses for a putty knife:

Drywall compound. ✔️
Wood filler. ✔️
Scraping paint. ✔️
Removing adhesive. ✔️
Chiseling someone else’s petrified boogers off a bathroom wall. ✔️

Ace really wasn’t kidding about being The Helpful Place.

I just don’t think this is what they meant.

So today’s friendly Hathaway’s PSA:

If you find yourself in our men’s bathroom and suddenly need somewhere to deposit something that came out of your nose…

USE. THE. TOILET. PAPER.

Please.

I am begging you.

Because apparently our employee handbook needs another chapter:

“Bodily Fluids, Mystery Substances & When to Just Grab the Putty Knife.”

Meanwhile, at Hathaway’s…

Putty knives aren’t just for home improvement anymore.

And this particular one has officially been removed from customer service. 😂

10/31/2026

Buy TWO get ONE FREEEEEEE!

10/30/2026

Break time shenanigans at ACE.

10/30/2026

I’m not saying this is the best deal on burger right now, but it’s definitely the best deal within 12 miles!

Stop in and Stock up!

Buy Local or Bye Local!

10/30/2026

MEANWHILE, AT HATHAWAY’S…
Episode 39: He Had It

Yesterday, a gentleman came in and headed toward our nuts and bolts.

I asked if he needed any help.

“No. I know what I’m doing.”

Perfect.

Carry on, sir.

A little while later, I walked back through and checked on him.

It became apparent fairly quickly that…

He did not, in fact, know what he was doing.

Which is FINE.

That’s literally why we’re here.

So I showed him where everything was and explained how our bulk hardware works:

Everything is marked with a price.

You count how many you take.

You write the quantity and price on the bag.

Very simple.

“If you need any more help, just let me know.”

“No. I’m not that stupid. I got it.”

Okay!

He did not, in fact, have it.

A little while later, he came to my register.

I had a line of customers behind him.

He handed me his bags.

Nothing written on them.

No quantity.

No price.

Just…

a bag full of mystery hardware.

So I asked:

“How many do you have in here, and what was the price?”

He looked at me and said:

“Well, it’s a handful. How the hell am I supposed to know the price? That’s your job.”

……

Sir.

Approximately 15 minutes ago, I explained this exact process to you.

Then I offered to help you.

And you specifically informed me that you were “not that stupid” and that you “got it.”

Yet here we stand.

Together.

With a handful as our official unit of measurement.

😂

Unfortunately, our register does not have a button for:

NUTS & BOLTS — ONE HANDFUL — MARKET PRICE

So I explained that I needed to know the quantity and the price before I could ring him up.

He was NOT pleased.

He angrily grabbed his bags and headed back to the hardware aisle to figure it out…

while my line of customers waited.

When he was finally finished, he apparently decided he’d had enough of me and took his carefully documented bags to the front register instead.

Which was probably for the best.

Because I had already committed the unforgivable offenses of:

1. Asking if he needed help.
2. Helping him.
3. Explaining exactly what he needed to do.
4. Believing him when he said he understood.
5. Expecting him to actually do it.

Meanwhile, at Hathaway’s…

If we ask whether you need help, you are allowed to say yes.

We promise.

We won’t think you’re stupid.

In fact, admitting you don’t know something usually saves everyone a whole lot of time.

And if you tell us, “I got it,” after we explain exactly what to do…

Please.

For the love of hardware.

Get it. 😂

10/26/2026

MEANWHILE, AT HATHAWAY’S…
Episode 38: The Empty Chair

We’ve told you before that sometimes the hardest part of owning a small-town store is realizing someone isn’t coming back.

Sometimes it’s because the canned plums stop selling.

And sometimes…

it’s because someone has been part of the store for so long, you can’t remember Hathaway’s without him in it.

We lost another one of those people.

As far back as I can remember, this man has been part of our world.

And I don’t just mean as a customer.

Back in the day, he would bring the model tractors he was building into the store to show my grandfather.

He’d walk in carrying his latest one, proud of whatever he’d been working on, and the two of them would settle in.

They’d admire the tractor.

They’d shoot the s**t.

They’d solve a few of the world’s problems.

And they’d do it all over a cup of stale hardware-store coffee that had probably been sitting in the pot far longer than any cup of coffee had a right to.

Nobody cared.

Because the coffee wasn’t really the point.

The company was.

That’s how small-town stores used to be.

And if we’re lucky, maybe that’s still a little bit of what Hathaway’s is today.

It wasn’t always get what you need and get out.

Sometimes you came in because you had something you wanted to show somebody.

Sometimes you leaned against the counter and talked for half an hour.

Sometimes you drank terrible coffee with an old friend and discussed crops, weather, tractors, town gossip and everything wrong with the world.

And then you came back and did it again.

Year after year.

Somewhere along the way, those people stop being customers.

They just become part of the place.

He was one of those people.

He was there when my grandfather was behind the counter.

He was there while I was growing up.

And he was still part of our world all these years later.

That’s a privilege of running a family business that’s been here this long that I don’t think we appreciate enough until one of those familiar faces is suddenly gone.

We get to know generations of people.

Not through customer numbers.

Not through loyalty cards.

But through conversations.

Through routines.

Through the things they always bought.

Through model tractors carried carefully through the front door.

Through stories we’ve heard more than once but would give just about anything to hear one more time.

Through cups of stale coffee shared with my grandfather.

And eventually, through memories.

There will always be new customers walking through these doors.

New stories.

New ridiculous Meanwhile at Hathaway’s episodes.

But there are some people who leave behind something that can’t be replaced by the next person who walks in.

They leave an empty space where their presence used to be.

And lately, we’ve been feeling a few too many of those empty spaces.

So this Meanwhile at Hathaway’s isn’t a funny one either.

It’s just a reminder that behind this counter, we remember you.

We remember your stories.

We remember what you bought.

We remember what you built.

We remember your laugh.

We remember the chair you sat in and the conversations you had.

And if you’ve been coming here long enough, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve become part of our family’s story, too.

Rest easy, old friend.

I hope somewhere there’s a fresh pot of coffee waiting for you.

Although, knowing you and Grandpa…

you’d probably complain it doesn’t taste nearly as good as the stale stuff at Hathaway’s. ❤️

10/24/2026

MEANWHILE, AT HATHAWAY’S…
Episode 37: The Plums

Most of our Meanwhile at Hathaway’s stories are funny.

They’re about the things that happen in retail that are so ridiculous you couldn’t make them up if you tried.

And let’s face it…

That’s what people want to read.

Nobody clicks as fast on “We had 300 perfectly pleasant customers today.”

You want the guy asking for the left-handed screwdriver.

You want to know why someone put used Band-Aids over the axe prices.

You want the customer who thinks we should be able to magically create the key to his locked house.

And we love telling you those stories.

But there’s another side of Meanwhile at Hathaway’s.

This side doesn’t get told as often.

The truth is, we have a place in our hearts for all of you.

Because we aren’t just your grocery store.

We aren’t just your hardware store.

We’re your neighbors.

And after you’ve been doing this long enough, you start knowing people by the things they buy.

We know who needs a certain kind of bread.

Who comes in for a particular coffee.

Who needs something ordered because they can’t easily get out of town anymore.

There are things sitting on our shelves that probably wouldn’t make sense to another store.

They don’t sell fast.

They aren’t big money-makers.

Sometimes only one person buys them.

But that person asked us to carry them.

So we do.

And as long as they keep coming through that door for them…

we keep ordering them.

The other day, we noticed the plums weren’t selling.

We’d been bringing them in for one particular gentleman.

He wanted plums.

So Hathaway’s carried plums.

Simple as that.

But lately, they had just been sitting there.

And eventually someone said it.

“We’re not selling the plums anymore.”

And then came the realization.

It wasn’t that people suddenly stopped wanting plums.

We had lost the man who wanted them.

And boy, did we know that man.

He was one of our favorites.

He never seemed to have a frown on his face.

And that laugh…

You didn’t have to see him come through the door to know he was here.

You could hear him laughing clear across the store.

It was the kind of laugh that made other people smile even when they had no idea what was funny.

And now the store is a little quieter.

That’s the part of small-town retail that’s hard to explain until you’ve lived it.

People think we remember our customers because it’s good customer service.

Sometimes that’s true.

But mostly?

We remember you because you’re part of our lives.

We notice when your kids suddenly aren’t little anymore.

We notice when you’re moving slower than you used to.

We notice when your spouse starts doing the shopping alone.

We notice when we haven’t seen you in a while.

And sometimes…

we notice because the plums stop selling.

There’s no report that tells you that.

No computer alert pops up and says:

Someone you cared about isn’t coming back.

There’s just a box of plums sitting where it always sat.

And one day you realize who isn’t walking through the door to buy them.

So yes, we’ll keep telling you the crazy stories.

We’ll laugh about the weird phone calls, the strange returns and all the things that make us wonder what in the world is happening around here.

That’s part of Hathaway’s, too.

But it’s not the most important part.

You are.

The people who have walked these aisles for years.

The people whose orders we know.

Whose voices we recognize on the phone.

Whose stories we’ve heard.

Whose laughs we can recognize from the other side of the store.

You may think you’re just stopping in for groceries.

Or a screw.

Or a gallon of paint.

Or maybe a bag of plums.

But somewhere along the way, without any of us really realizing when it happens…

you become part of Hathaway’s.

And when you’re gone,

we notice.

This one’s for the man with the big laugh…

and the plums we’ll always think of as his. ❤️

10/23/2026

Why is the music always so loud.

10/22/2026

We have some delicious new items from Lumberjack's Arctic Treats!

Address

316 Market Street
Galva, IL
61434

Opening Hours

Monday	8am - 8pm
Tuesday	8am - 8pm
Wednesday	8am - 8pm
Thursday	8am - 8pm
Friday	8am - 8pm
Saturday	8am - 8pm
Sunday	8am - 8pm

Website

http://www.acehardware.com/store-details/16659

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