The aisles of Miller’s Hardware in Winter Park were packed with customers. Some came looking for deals. But many popped in just to say goodbye to the owner, who’s been a fixture in their lives for decades.
Miller’s, in business since 1945, is one of two longstanding Central Florida hardware stores that will soon shutter. The store on Fairbanks Avenue began its final liquidation sale Thursday morning.
“We’ll miss seeing him. I’m really sad,” said Leslie Lynch, a Miller’s shopper for 30 years. “I don’t know what I’ll buy today, but I just wanted to see it. It’s definitely iconic.”
After more than 80 years in business, the shop is closing so owner Larry Miller can retire.
At J & L Hardware in Orlando, which opened in 1971, owners Larry and Belinda Finley are doing the same, closing their shop on Orange Blossom Trail so they can stop working.
Both shops have customers who say they will be sorely missed.
Slaven Djudaric, a J & L shopper for more than 20 years, said it is the personal touch, which he does not find at big box stores, that has kept him coming back.
“You’ll come in here and ask a question, and there’s always someone to help,” Djudaric said.
Belinda and Larry Finley, longtime owners of J&L Hardware in Orlando, talk with customer Mario Dias as he pays for an item. The couple are retiring and closing the shop, which has been in operation on Orange Blossom Trail since the 1970s. (Rich Pope/Orlando Sentinel)
Both shops have made it their business to supply goods their communities desire.
For Miller, whose store is a couple blocks from the upscale shopping and dining on Park Avenue, his most popular departments are grills and grilling supplies and lawn and garden. The shop was once nicknamed “The Woman’s Hardware Store” because of its large housewares department featuring a wide array of kitchen supplies.
Brightly lit, the store features wide aisles and professional displays that look more like a small department store than the hardware shop it was when Miller’s grandfather opened the business.
“Things evolve,” Miller said. “Yeti didn’t exist back then. Nobody knew what a Big Green Egg was back then,” listing names of companies that make coolers, drinkware and high-end grills. “PVC didn’t exist. We cut galvanized pipe for irrigation systems.”
The aisles are filled with an eclectic assortment of goods, from gourmet dog food to potato mashers to a collection of paint brushes, some large enough for a house and others small enough for a fine canvas.
Genevieve Vante has been a Miller’s shopper for more than two decades. When she was making purses out of cigar boxes to sell at craft fairs, she relied on the shop for the parts she needed.
“You can find everything here that no longer exists in local stores,” Vante said.
Miller, 70, was born and raised in Winter Park and has worked at his shop since as long as he can remember. His grandfather paid him $1.80 an hour when he was in middle school.
“This community has supported generations of my family,” Miller said. “I love this community. I have made so many friends through this business.”
The plan was for Miller’s son, Clay Miller, to take over the business, but he died in 2019, and none of Miller’s other children want to run it. So Miller’s will close, though Miller has not yet settled on a date.
J & L, located in an industrial area surrounded by blue-collar businesses, is a quarter the size of Miller’s and shows its age. Its wooden display shelves were hand-built by the Finleys when they took over the business in the mid-1990s. Its walls are lined with aging pegboards.
The shop carries specialized plumbing parts and has dozens of cases that look like card catalogs and are filled with hard-to-find screws and bolts.
Most of Finley’s employees have handyman businesses on the side. Finley values them as much for their hard work as he does for the knowledge they bring to the shop.
Tyrone Hill has worked at the shop for 25 years. He also runs his own plumbing business and said about half his clients came from J & L.
“Something my dad used to say when I was growing up, ‘Son, always remember there’s a time when all good things must come to an end’,” Hill said. “This has been a good thing for the Finleys. This has been a pleasant experience for me. But I have a lot of mixed emotions because the community is going to miss the store.”
Bob Schmidt helps a customer at J&L Hardware in Orlando on Thursday, April 8, 2027. Owners Larry and Belinda Finley are retiring and closing their shop, which has been in operation on Orange Blossom Trail since the 1970s. (Rich Pope/Orlando Sentinel)
J & L is a spot where contractors go for a second opinion and a rare part, and residents in the surrounding neighborhoods come for guidance on home repairs.
Larry Finley was a civil engineer and his wife a dental assistant when they abandoned those careers in 1995 and purchased J & L from Belinda Finley’s parents, who started the store.
Since then, Larry Finley has been at the shop six days a week, weathering the businesses highs and lows. When internet shopping gained in popularity, their business took a hit. But things were booming in the early 2000s, as the housing market was thriving.
The shop never recovered from the business it lost during the COVID-19 pandemic, however.
“I was looking the other day, we used to average about 125 a day and now it’s 65 or 70,” Larry Finley said.
The Finleys, who are in their 70s, plan on spending more time with their grandchildren, and traveling, something they haven’t been able to do with the demands of running the shop.
They will be closing at the end of May and, in June, they are taking a long overdue vacation to Alaska.
“It’s a bittersweet situation,” Larry Finley said. “I’ll miss going into work every day. But I look forward to time with family.”
At Miller’s, where recently hung signs announce, “Store Closing” and “Our Biggest Sale Ever”, the store’s current owner isn’t yet sure what he’ll do in his retirement.
“I worked hard all my life,” Miller said. “Now I’m going to play harder.”