Roosters: hardware on a human scale

PINE PLAINS — In 2017 Jeff and Amy Como were a successful White Plains couple looking for a lifestyle change. Jeff was a former chief information officer running his own professional services firm, while Amy was an assistant deputy commissioner at the Administration for Children’s Services in New York City.

Jeff said: “I would be traveling a lot, Amy would be staying very late at work. We’d come home at night, eat at 10, and fall asleep at 10:30 — it was getting old. We would never see each other. I thought, ‘I can make it until retirement’ but if I started thinking like that, I was going to hate the next 15 years of my life. But, what to do?”

Amy said: “I figured, ‘Why don’t we just do something really stupid? Why are we thinking within the confines of our current careers?’” That prompted Jeff to go online and search for potential businesses for sale.

Amy continued: “We thought of every kind of business, from laundromats to a bed and breakfast. Jeff then found a hardware store on the market but without a lot of information. He didn’t even have the exact location, but from the context, he was able to home in on it with Google Earth. He thought it looked very familiar. So we drove up from White Plains [to Stanfordville] and we realized we’d actually been here antiquing.”

Jeff had built up considerable hardware expertise while renovating their 1920s Colonial Revival home in Westchester County. “I was in a Home Depot or another hardware store almost every day for 10 years — it was a great experience, very hands-on, with woodworking, plumbing and the like. The idea of a hardware store wasn’t far-fetched, and we liked the challenge — we didn’t want to do something boring, because we’re ‘Type A’ people,” he said, laughing.

“This place (formerly McKeough’s Home and Hardware) didn’t seem like much but once we looked past the facade, we were like, ‘We can do something with this.’ We felt if we were smart about it and patient, we had the runway to do it. Plus, we thought this was a great little community we fell in love with all those years ago — the people are a real eclectic mix.”

With a business in mind and a location selected, the Comos just needed a name. Jeff said that was an easy decision: “You look at the top of the building, there’s a cupola, and on top of that, a rooster. It’s fun, a little quirky — a little different from just using the family name.” Thus: Roosters Route 82 Home and Hardware Center.

In 2018, the Comos sold their house in Westchester and moved to Milan, and a week later, closed on the hardware store property on Route 82 in Stanfordville.

Amy, left, and Jeff Como became hardware store owners in Stanfordville in 2018. Photo By J.R. Tracy

The ordinary challenges of a new business were compounded when COVID-19 hit in 2020. Demand for hardware and renovation-related products skyrocketed, but the Comos found themselves nearly abandoned by their main distributor. They were forced to look elsewhere, which proved a blessing in disguise.

Jeff said: “We switched our allegiance to a co-op called Do It Best. We turned to them in the midst of a six-week crisis, and they came through, getting us up on their platform in two weeks. We like the co-op model because we have ownership, and have input at the co-op level.”

The pandemic did not dent the Comos’ long-term goals. Since the closing of Deuel’s Home Center, Pine Plains had lacked a hardware store. The Comos saw an opportunity and secured a site on Church Street in October 2020, set to open in March 2021. The move was a huge risk. As Amy said: “Were we robbing Peter to pay Paul? Would our Pine Plains customers just stop coming to Stanfordville, leaving us without any real growth?”

As it turned out, they needn’t have worried. Amy continued: “We gained loyal followers in Pine Plains, and some of them even come to Stanfordville as well, for the things we just don’t have the space to carry in Pine Plains. We have a strong contractor customer base in Pine Plains now, whereas Stanfordville serves a lot more lawn and garden and other outdoor needs.” Roosters’ contractor customers include Ginocchio Electric and Superior Sanitation, longtime local service providers.

Besides the Comos, Roosters has six employees, a mix of full- and part-time staff. Employee Jean Knapp was a real find, said Amy: “Jean is the perfect full-time person — she already had a background in fasteners, has a vast knowledge of hardware — she was a linchpin in opening Pine Plains.” Knapp is a steady presence behind the counter in the Pine Plains location.

Employees like Knapp have helped Roosters establish a distinct identity, a pressing need with Williams Lumber and Herrington’s just a few miles away in several nearby communities. Jeff said: “We focus on our brand, differentiating it from something like Williams, which is a little colder, a little more corporate. Our goal is neat, clean, organized stores, with a friendly, helpful staff that can solve problems.”

This article appears courtesy of The New Pine Plains Herald.