A couple of months ago, I heard a radio announcement about Cole Hardware opening up two new locations in San Francisco. I wondered how Rick Karp, the owner and longtime San Mateo resident, was able to do this in such a competitive market. So I met with Karp last month to learn more about Cole Hardware.
His dad, Dave, bought the original, a little hardware store on the corner of Cole Street in the Haight district, in 1961. The store was a neighborhood favorite (and remains so) in those wild days of the ‘60s where Haight-Ashbury was the center of it all. Customers included Janice Joplin, Angela Davis, the Black Panthers and the Hare Krishna flower children. Karp was a teenager at the time. “The Haight in the ‘60s had an influence on who I am today,” he said.
