Arruda's Hardware in Hamilton closes after 40 years in business

A mainstay of Hamilton’s north end community has shut its doors after 40 years in business.

Arruda’s Hardware and Building Supplies was founded by the family patriarch, Jacinto Arruda in 1983.

After his death last December, his children decided it was time to sell the building.

“My dad asked us what we wanted to do with our life. We would always go to Turkstra to pick up materials, and we said well we want to have a hardware store too! And low and behold, he built us a hardware store,” Manuel Arruda said.

Sitting where the front counter used to be, Manuel remembers the rhythm of his family’s four decades at the helm of a hardware store.

“We’d be here every day, we’d go home everyday together, we’d eat together…it was a family,” Arruda said.

The family had a jewellery business on James Street North, but when the kids expressed an interest in hardware in 1983, Jacinto, his wife Isabel and kids Manuel, Davide and Elizabeth, built Arruda’s Building Supplies where the Palermo Bakery once stood.

Manuel and Davide even helped with construction. It was an old school family business with all five intimately involved.

Arruda says his parents retired about ten years ago, and sadly his father passed in December, prompting the sale of the building for redevelopment.

“I think he’d be very happy we accomplished what we wanted to do in life, and that he always says, when you are ready, just move on,” Arruda said.

The store is now mostly empty and was supposed to close the end of the month,but instead shut down yesterday.

But, the bricks and mortar of this now quiet place, still holds plenty of memories for the Arruda family.

Manuel says the hardware’s legacy in the community has prompted some tearful goodbyes from longtime customers.

“One gentleman came in, started crying, you know he says your father helped me do everything,” Manuel said.

It’s a legacy of customer service says Manuel, something their dad would be proud of.