Over the last few decades, just about everything in Pilsen has been touched by change. But in that time, the face behind the counter at Alvarez Hardware has always been the same.
Rodolfo Alvarez’s jam-packed 18th Street store has been the place to go for Pilsen residents looking for a new shovel or pipe fitting since he bought the business from his father-in-law in the 1980s. “I used to run to the suppliers four or five times a day because I could not buy, let’s say, a box of elbows or nipples or whatever,” he said. “I used to buy five pieces at a time, six pieces here and there. And then when I come here, my wife says ‘they’re gone, go back! Here’s the money!’ It was a struggle, but it paid off.”
Now, Rodolfo Alvarez is teaching his grandson Julian the softer side of the hardware business – and how to give the service that keeps customers coming back. “This is my second home, you know, we don’t pay for daycares. This was a daycare for me. So like, I grew up here,” he said. “Every Saturday morning we’d wake up early, go for the merchandise and bring it, mark it up. I would ask questions like, what does that do? What’s this used for? Why do people come for that? And my grandfather, you know, he would tell me.”