Business: Romanian couple finds happiness selling hardware to a grateful town Business: Romanian couple finds happiness selling hardware to a grateful town (January 25, 2006)

By David Boyce

Almanac Staff Writer

In places far away from California there are myths about the Golden State. It's a land where opportunities are around every corner, the sun shines all the time and everybody can get a new start.

The lure of California played a part in the journey to Menlo Park for Vasile and Adriana Oros, who were high school sweethearts in Gherla, Romania, and who own the resurrected Menlo Park Hardware at 700 Santa Cruz Ave.

Coming to California, which they had encountered only in movies, "was a dream, you know, when we lived in Romania," Ms. Oros says.

They have received a warm welcome in Menlo Park, says Mr. Oros. Future customers were enthusiastically banging on the windows while they were preparing the store for the August 8, 2005, opening day.

"It was a good feeling from the beginning," he says. "We are glad to be here. After the first few weeks, we decided to move here."

The couple have been Californians for about 10 years now, living in Los Angeles for about a year, and then in San Francisco, where they now live with their two children and where they also own a second hardware store at the corner of Market and Church streets.

They are delaying their move to Menlo Park until after their daughter, now in eighth grade, is ready for high school, says Ms. Oros.

"We're sorry we didn't move here years ago," she says. "You feel like home (here). You can relax a little."

Life in Gherla was "like (it is) in Menlo Park," she says, with one big difference: in Gherla, she was likely to encounter relatives anytime she went outside.
Smaller footprint

For 77 years, until it went out of business in 2001, a hardware store occupied the building at 700 Santa Cruz Ave. Also called Menlo Park Hardware, it was owned and operated by Susie Ryan Lorist and Bob Ryan, a brother-and-sister team whose aunt and uncle had established the business in 1924.

After a four-year interlude, hardware is again being sold at that address. "We're glad to continue the legend," says Mr. Oros. Indeed, Ms. Lorist gave the couple a horseshoe for luck.

The original store took up 8,255 square feet. At 3,000 square feet, the new store is much smaller, but customers should find their expectations met, Mr. Oros says. The items are just packed in higher and tighter.

To allow more floor space for goods, there is a new storage space -- a 1,000-square-foot mezzanine in back.

The rear part of the building is now a meeting hall for the Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, which owns the building. From the hardware store, customers can use a rear hallway to get to the parking area in back.

The store employs about eight people, a mix of full-time and part-time employees. The youngest is Menlo Park resident Chris Barrett, 17, a senior at Menlo-Atherton High School who started last week in hopes of earning some money for college.

The oldest is 86, a former employee of the original hardware store who now works two days a week, says Ms. Oros.
Hardware in the blood

Mr. Oros has roots in working with tools. In Romania he was a general contractor, but started out as a handyman with a focus on electrical and plumbing repairs. "This is what I do," he says. "I repair everything."

Ms. Oros says she has found her calling as well: working in retail. "I really love to do the paperwork," she says.

"That's why I'm successful in this business," says Mr. Oros with a broad smile.

The store did well over the Christmas holiday, he says.

Asked if customers in the Menlo Park store are different from those in San Francisco, Ms. Oros says that San Franciscans tend to stand silently in line while waiting to check out, whereas Menlo Park customers like to chat.

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