Frentz & Sons Hardware store to wrap up 90 years of service

ROYAL OAK — Frentz & Sons Hardware, a staple of downtown Royal Oak, has announced the selling of its building and property after more than 90 years of business.

Frentz & Sons Hardware opened its doors in 1932 and has continued to provide the community with hardware supplies for all types of projects.

According to a post made by John, Mike and Chip Frentz on the Frentz & Sons Hardware Facebook page, the family is selling the business due to a mix of personal reasons, economic realities, rising costs and the challenges of running a small business.

“At the same time, the three of us are now in our retirement years and are looking ahead to the next stage of our lives,” the post reads. No end date has been set and the store said in a subsequent post that it will be “business as usual for the foreseeable future.”

The post announcing that the store will be coming to an end received nearly 600 comments from supporters of the business.

“Your store is deeply embedded in my life, and in the life of my family. My dad and all his kids measured the difficulty of any task by how many trips to Frentz it would take to get it done,” Mary Fortuna wrote in a comment. “Thank you for a lifetime of excellent service to the community.”

“We bought our first home in Royal Oak in 1971. We were young and my husband didn’t have a lot of experience in doing handyman type things. We lived by 11 & Campbell so we would make many trips to Frentz & Sons and you were always so helpful,” Barb Paulson wrote. “You will be missed. An icon in Royal Oak! Enjoy your retirement! It is well deserved!”

Jim Horton commented about the reliability of the store, which always had the materials he needed for his first 1923 farmhouse home.

“Frentz had everything I needed and knew how to guide me through repairs. I was there so many times, I became friends with Chip and formed the Frentz and Sons bowling team. Really going to miss this place,” Horton commented. “Best of luck in whatever you do. Big box stores will never replace the know-how and personal service Frentz and Sons provided.”

Mike Frentz speaks about the history of the business in a video created by Royal Oak Schools provided on the Frentz & Sons Hardware website, frentzandsons.com, in the “About” section.

Frentz said that the original Frentz hardware store opened in Detroit in 1925, but was moved to Royal Oak after his father and grandfather noticed a vacant hardware store building while getting off of a street car on the way to Imlay City.

“My dad and my grandfather saw the hardware store was for sale, and they decided to buy it and move in 1932,” Frentz said. “My grandfather was in his 80s at that time, so my dad took the business over when he moved into Royal Oak. He was 21 at that time.”

Frentz said in the video that other kids envied his life, because the store sold toys.

“At that time we sold toys, and it was a pretty big toy store, and I think I was envied because of that,” he said. “As a kid I can remember going in there on Sundays — we were closed on Sunday at that time — and my dad would be doing odd jobs and myself and my brother and my sister, we would hop on a couple of tricycles and we would ride our tricycles around the store, up and down the ramps, and my dad would get so mad.”

For more information on Frentz & Sons Hardware, visit frentzandsons.com.