About Tampa Bay Hardware

5511 N. Nebraska Ave., Tampa

Proprietor: Tom Roberts

Founded: 1941 (oldest hardware store in Tampa)

Popular items: Nuts, bolts, pipe fittings; "We have hundreds of sales a day under a dime," Roberts says.

Perks: Antique tools, toys and plumbing parts all over the place and a "mini flea market" stocked by Roberts' family. Customer Joe Cordaro didn't find the cutting wheel he was looking for on the shelves but did find it - for $2 - on the "flea market" tables.

Step into Tampa Bay Hardware and step back in time. There's no air conditioning; giant fans in wood boxes effectively circulate the warm air.

"It gets hot in August," owner Tom Roberts concedes.

The store opened during the heyday of this neighborhood, when it was a suburb full of middle-class families. When Interstate 75 (now I-275) cut it in two, the effect was like slicing a major artery. Families left, homes deteriorated, crime moved in. Seminole Heights withered.

It was in pretty bad shape when Roberts came to town in the early 1970s, he says.

New homeowners buying and rehabbing the historical bungalows helped revitalize the neighborhood - and the big, barnlike hardware store. Roberts sells them the Stainless Steel Window Controls they need for a simple fix when the cords break in their double-hung sash windows. They're $3.15 each. The wood-frame screens for those windows require a hard-to-find hanger set, which, of course, Roberts carries - $4.15.

The biggest sellers are from the rows upon rows of bins of nails and bolts and nuts and washers. How many bins are there? Don't ask Roberts. He doesn't know.

As with the other surviving hardware stores, Roberts says customer service is as big a commodity as inventory. He does know how to fix things, though. He holds a degree in industrial engineering. A hardware store seems the perfect place for a guy like Tom Roberts..

"I love waiting on people," he says, "and figuring things out for them."