I worked in a local mom and pop hardware shop when I was in high school and loved it. Because I love tools and the like. It was always amazing to me that people would come in and ask me, a 16 or 17 year old, how to properly seal their gas line and things like that. I happened to know it (”Pipe dope, sir, never teflon tape on gas.”) but it’s a testament to how uninformed but needy people will take guidance from anyone who seems to know what their talking about, anyone at all.
I went to a mom and pop store while helping a friend with a plumbing project. The 10 year old kid who helped me was absolutely amazing in his knowledge of copper pipe fittings.
It was really cool.
I’ve been to a few hardware show’s the co-ops (Do it best, ACE etc) put on. It’s really cool to see entire families there buying stuff for the store.