Hastings Ace Hardware — Local services in Hastings

Hastings MI is home to one of the country's largest gravel-road bicycle races called Barry Roubaix. The 2017 race was wet and rainy with average temps hovering around 34 degrees. I finished my ride, and through poor planning on my part, was left outside waiting for a teammate who had the car keys. I was soaked, borderline hypothermic, tired and rather miserable...so in desperation, I ventured inside ACE hArdware to try and warm up and stay out of the rain. I stood in the entryway covered in mud, dripping water, visibly shaking from the cold...as I stood there, other cyclists who were in a similar situation started to gather in the entryway with me. Now, anytime you have an event like this, where 3500 cyclists converge on a small town and take it over for a day, there are many reasons for local residents and businesses to begrudge "tourists" like myself. I had this in mind as I tracked my muddy footprints into the store. As the group of muddy road-weary cyclists gathered by the heater inside the ACE entryway, I began to expect that a store manager would soon be sent over to ask us to move along, and I wouldn't have blamed them.

However... The staff at ACE Hardware not only welcomed me (and all the other cyclists) but they checked in on us regularly to ask if we needed anything. Then the store staff set up a keurig coffee machine and started serving us hot drinks to try and help us warm up. There was no rush to get us out of the store, or any sense of annoyance at our muddy invasion of their business space. Just genuine goodwill. I have a local ACE hardware in my hometown of Evanston IL that will now be my primary hardware store, and my future trips to Barry Roubaix will most certainly include a stop at the Hastings ACE. This store was a shining example of a local business going way above and beyond. Thank you to that store team for taking such good care of us...it was appreciated more...

Took my chainsaw in for repair as it wasn't running right. Cleetus changed the sprocket. I was like, really? Sprocket for a idle/bogging down issue. So I took it home. Didn't run it for a while and when I started it up, it had the same issue. I took it back and had to argue with management on the benching fee to have it looked at again as the same issue wasn't fixed the first time. They put a new carburetor on it. I am now running it and the same issue is occurring again. I will never take anything to Hastings Ace Hardware for repair. For the money I spent on repair, I could have been 3/4 the way to a new chainsaw. Update So I took my Stihl chainsaw to GreenMark in Hastings. The repairman said that this is a known issue for my chainsaw model. There's a rubber grommet that was faulty between the carburetor and the engine that cracks. They replace that, and it's running very well. He said I probably didn't need a new carburetor that Ace replaced. If you want your Stihl equipment repaired, don't bring it here, but drive up the road to GreenMark. They seemed better trained than Willy from high school at this...

My husband bought a sthil chainsaw less then a year ago. It broke and he called up there to find the details and what he had to do to have it serviced. He was told to bring it to the parts desk and they would help him. Drove all the way their to find out theres a 30$ charge to even take the saw and if it was warrantied it would be refunded. He didn't have Any money on him bc he wasn't told on the phone there was a drop off fee. Had they told him he would have came in a differnt day with the fee and saved a 50 min drive and the exspenspensive diesel to make the drive. Not to mention the kid at the desk made it sound like it most likely won't be covered by warranty. For a exspensive saw to break that soon and not be covered is rediculous. Now we are wishing we would have made a exspensive investment else were. We won't be buying any more...