CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) RESOURCE CENTER Read More
Add To Favorites

Hardware store owned by a 93-year-old veteran named Cambria's business of the year

Tribune - 12/15/2021

Dec. 15—Imagine you are 93 years old, and you "retired" to Cambria almost 50 years ago — What would your day be like?

If you're Chuck McMillan of Cambria, you'd still be at your Cambria Hardware and Mercantile stores every day, displaying your radiantly wide smile and twinkling eyes, being friendly and helpful.

According to representatives of the Cambria Chamber of Commerce, McMillan's tenacity, innate generosity and kindness — and the skill of his stalwart manager of 34 years, Mary Evans — are among the reasons the True Value hardware-affiliate store was selected to be the chamber's 2021 Business of the Year.

The honor was announced Dec. 7. The award is to be officially bestowed on Jan. 18, but, because of the pandemic, officials have not yet determined if the annual ceremony will be held in person or remotely.

Evans describes her boss and friend McMillan as being "wonderful to work for, a very generous man" to the community and his staff.

"This is more of a family down here," she said. "He takes into consideration that we all have lives and all our lives are different. Sometimes, we need a helping hand, and he's there to do it."

McMillan is there to do it just as he has for decades for the community they both serve.

Couple retires to Cambria, purchases hardware store

As McMillan describes it, his original opportunity to retire after 35 years as a San Gabriel Valley funeral director and 10 years as a partner in a construction company "didn't work out exactly as planned."

He and his wife had discovered Cambria on vacation, while they were thinking about a place to retire.

Cambria's overnight visit turned into a weeklong stay.

They bought a lot "almost 50 years ago," he said in a Dec. 9 phone interview with The Cambrian, but they soon learned the lot was too steep for a house. So they bought another lot. Then a moratorium on new water permits was declared — a moratorium that's still in place.

So, the McMillans bought a mobile home in a local park, where she lived and he commuted north on weekends.

One of those weekends, McMillan said he went into a hardware store in the Redwood Center, and wasn't impressed with how the business was being run or the way customers were being served.

"I went to Redwood Realty and told Evie Redwood, 'That place will go on the market in three or four months, and I'm going to buy it,' " he said.

That's just what happened. The deal took nearly a year to finalize, but McMillan took over in February 1983.

"I figured I'd come up here and quietly run the hardware store for 10 years or so with two or three employees and be semi-retired," he said.

Things didn't exactly turn out that way.

Veteran expands hardware business

Soon thereafter, he and two partners bought a long defunct lumberyard in the area, down the hill from Burton Drive in the area that's now known as Tin Village.

There were complications, however.

"I had just had a hip operation," he recalled, "and I was on crutches."

On June 18, 1994, they switched locations.

"Mary moved all the stock from the Redwood Center to here in one day, with some people helping her," McMillan said. "We were never closed down."

Being on crutches didn't tie him down, he said, although some people certainly wished it had.

When they bought the lumberyard, he said, "the roof was leaking, and we had to have some work done on it ... I tried to show the roofer what I wanted done, but he couldn't understand. So, I climbed the ladder onto the roof to show him."

McMillan getting up there with his crutches must have been quite a sight. He can laugh about it now.

Longtime manager Evans, who was one of those fussing at him about being on the roof that day, said that a couple of years ago, the two of them decided that the town needed a general store/mercantile, "so people didn't have to leave town to find things they need" in a wide range of categories, from housewares, shower curtains and T-shirts to microwaves, mini blinds and patio furniture.

So, in 2018, they expanded into the building next door, which through the years, had housed a variety of unrelated businesses owned by others.

McMillan bought out his lumberyard partners about a decade ago.

The chamber ceremony won't be the first time McMillan's been in the spotlight.

In 2013, American Legion Post No. 432 honored him for his 60 years of consistent membership and participation in the organization.

He served four years in the Navy in the time between World War II and the Korean conflict. He was stationed in the Mediterranean, and served as an admiral's aide.

He's still active in the Legion Post.

On his 90th birthday in 2018, the Post honored him again during a meeting at which he got to meet Congressman Salud Carbajal.

Owner surprised by recognition

Even so, the 2021 Business of the Year honor was a big surprise to McMillan, the still astonished man said Dec. 9.

"My feeling was, why?" he said. "I've always tried to be in the background. I prefer to do what needs to be done quietly."

McMillan even said he thinks other people in town deserve the award more than he does.

"I'm just lucky to be well supported by the town," he said.

But with the Business of the Year decision finalized, the modest McMillan insists it is his general manager who deserve the true kudos.

"Mary should be the one receiving the award, not me," he said. "She's been everything. She's fantastic."

At the end of the radio commercials he records himself monthly for a couple of radio stations, McMillan always reminds listeners, "Come on down. If we don't have it, Mary will find it for you."

___

(c)2021 The Tribune (San Luis Obispo, Calif.)

Visit The Tribune (San Luis Obispo, Calif.) at www.sanluisobispo.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.