MOORHEAD — The downtown Moorhead Ace hardware store has changed hands.
The store is now part of the Grand Rapids, Minn.-based Burggraf's Ace Hardware chain, CEO Steven Burggraf said Monday, Oct. 18.
The sale was finalized Monday morning.
“We just closed on it today at 10:30 and we’re rarin’ to go. This will be our fourth store in this market,” Burggraf said. “We just like the Fargo-Moorhead area.”
Burggraf said previous owner Mandy Peterson retired.
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The current employees will be retained and the store’s hours of operation will remain the same.
“We’ve got great employees here,” he said.
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However, the store at 20 6th St. S. will probably be renamed as a Burggraf’s Ace “like the rest of our stores,” he said.
The Burggraf's chain has 11 stores, including shops in north and south Fargo and West Fargo.
Changes will include having more stock on hand.
“We’ll add a lot of inventory. We’re normally heavy on inventory. We’ll add a ton of grills, and power equipment and power tools,” Burggraf said. “If somebody goes into our south Fargo store or our West Fargo store, it’s going to have the same look and feel.”
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Peterson thanked the community for its support in a Facebook message.
“I want to say thank you for 43 years of community support. Me and my family have had many wonderful memories in this community. Due to health issues, that I want to dedicate my time to fully, I have made the decision to sell the store to a current Ace store owner,” Peterson wrote. “It is bittersweet because I know it is what I need to do but I will miss the many wonderful faces I saw every day. The store will be left in good hands and all of my same great staff will still be working there. Thank you again for supporting my family’s business.”
Former Moorhead Mayor Del Rae Williams put together a goodbye event called “Donuts and Adieu to Mandy (Moorhead Ace)”, which ran from 8-10 a.m. Monday in the store’s parking lot.
“Stop by for a Donut and sign a Large Card to thank Mandy and her family for many years in our Community at our favorite Ace store,” Williams wrote on the Moorhead=Fantastic Facebook page.
The store got its start in April 1978 when two men working in the Coast to Coast hardware store chain decided to buy a business of their own.
Dick Popp was in Minneapolis and Dennis Peterson was living in Brookings, S.D., at the time. The business they purchased was a Coast to Coast in the Holiday Mall on Eighth Street South in Moorhead.
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The store moved to its current location in 1990.
Dennis Peterson died in 2010. Mandy Peterson eventually took over ownership after practically growing up in the store.
"I used to ring up people when I was 5. It was my dad's way of teaching me math," Peterson told the Forum in an April 2018 article marking the store’s 40th year of business.
