As more businesses reopen amid pandemic, home improvement sales spiking

Items are still flying off store shelves during the COVID-19 pandemic, and hardware stores are feeling the boom in business as more and more places are getting ready to reopen.

“Gloves, any disinfectant cleaners, like Lysol or Clorox bleach, masks and respirators,” said Andrew Stover, who works at North End Hardware and Rental. “Lots of lawn and garden and stuff, equipment. People are doing projects around the house they’ve been putting off for years because they’ve got time to do it now.”

Plexiglass is the new item in high demand, and some hardware stores will have trouble keeping up.

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Over at Hope Breakfast Bar in St. Paul, it’s all hands on deck to get the restaurant ready, almost looking like remodeling efforts.

“We’ve built some custom partitions to separate every table, we’ve built partitions for the bar,” said Brian Ingram, Hope Breakfast Bar owner. “We’ve gone through new HEPA filters and air conditioners.”

For some, it can feel like starting over from scratch.

“This is like opening a new restaurant,” said Ingram. “This was hard enough on restaurants already, so to think about all of those additional costs, I think as people try to reopen they may find out that they don’t have the financial resources to reopen?.”