Villager and owner of YS Hardware Dan Badger is signing off — he and his wife, Sarah, recently announced the closure of YS Hardware. No hard date has been set — the Badgers are running a 30% clearance on its inventory to winnow it down. (Photo by Reilly Dixon)
The Badgers hang up the hammer — YS Hardware to close
- Published: May 21, 2025
As innumerable downtown businesses and boutiques have come and gone over the years, one has remained at the corner of Xenia Avenue and Short Street since 1927: a small-town, independently owned hardware store.
Over those 98 years, the hardware store — first Deaton’s, then Downing’s and later Yellow Springs Hardware — has only changed hands four times, and all the while, it’s been the downtown outlet for bits and bobs, birdseed and bolts, chess matches and chit chat.
That era has come to an end.
Yellow Springs Hardware owner Dan Badger is closing up shop after nearly four years of running the business.
“I’m grateful we got to have this time together, to be connected to my community in this way,” Badger told the News in a recent interview. “This whole experience has been such a positive one for me and my family, but we just can’t afford to keep doing it.”
Though Badger and his wife, Sarah, publicly announced YS Hardware’s “soft closure” on social media last week, Badger said no hard date has been set for when business will cease altogether.
YS Hardware, located at 254 Xenia Ave., will remain open 1–5 p.m., Wednesday–Saturday, until inventory winnows down.
To expedite that process, the business is running a “grand closing sale,” offering 30% off on all hardware and household products with a price tag.
Yellow Springs Hardware is located at 254 Xenia Ave, Yellow Springs, OH 45387. (Photo by Reilly Dixon)
“A lot of things are intentionally being kept as open as possible,” Badger said. “We’re leaving time and flexibility to see if any long-shot ideas come to the surface.”
Citing uneven competition between nearby big box stores — such as Menards, Lowe’s and Home Depot — as well as mounting supply chain issues and shifting consumer behaviors, Badger said he’s had to take on a growing number of odd jobs and projects outside of YS Hardware to keep the store afloat in recent months.
“Generating the money to subsidize the store has become a full-time job,” Badger said.”My handyman work, automotive work, aircraft work, programming, huge projects, little projects — all this just to cover the gap between what the store earns and what it costs.”
Earlier last year, Yellow Springs Hardware owner Dan Badger (and his furry co-owner Orville) moved several of his shop’s shelves to make way for occasional audiences — room to spectate for music shows, improv performances and more. (Photo by Reilly Dixon)
After months of repeating that vicious cycle — spending more time outside of the store just to keep it open, and from that absence, watching the quality of the store decline — Badger said he and his wife were forced to make the hard decision to close.
While the future of the retail space is in flux, Badger said with certainty that the odds are stacked against any independently owned hardware store residing there.
“We’ve spent the last six or seven months meeting with people and groups in town, trying to figure out some way to keep a hardware store in this space, and none of those conversations have been particularly successful,” Badger said.
He continued: “We’re doing our best to keep this space as a place that will be useful and valuable to the community, but that’s a hard thing to do. Businesses here in town are not doing well right now, so how do you ask someone else to take that on?”
Badger declined to name the individuals and groups with whom he has been speaking about keeping the store’s doors open, but did specify the similar struggles of some other local businesses — such as Tom’s Market and YS Pharmacy — whose products and services cater more to village residents than visitors.
“Yellow Springs is not a rural community anymore,” Badger said. “We’re right down the street from bigger towns with bigger stores with bigger selections and lower prices. And when all those things are just 10 or 15 minutes away, villagers are forced to choose between paying more to keep local shops open, or saving money.”
Badger doesn’t necessarily blame people who shop at the big box retails for YS Hardware’s closure — by his own admission, he shops there occasionally as well. Nor did he begrudge visitors to the village for not spending more dollars at the hardware store, as he never geared his business model to those beyond the 2.5 square miles of Yellow Springs.
But Badger did encourage local residents with some more disposable income than others to consider patronizing businesses that some could not do without.
“There is a cohort of at least several hundred residents who don’t drive, don’t have good access to transportation or don’t have the ability to jump on Amazon to order what they need — these are the kinds of people who will be really affected negatively without the hardware store, without Tom’s, without the pharmacy,” Badger said.
For these grim possibilities, Badger said he and his wife are experiencing some feelings of sadness and frustration, but are trying not to dwell on those emotions. He said he was happy to play a small role in Yellow Springs’ hardware history.
“I’ve gotten to bike to work, to see my son go to school across the street. I’ve gotten to see so many people I love every single day,” Badger said. “Like so many people in town, I feel such an emotional connection to this space.”
April 20, 1988: Randy Deaton, Russel Miller, W.W. Deaton and Doug Gardner of Deaton’s Hardware were featured in a News profile “Meet your local business person.” (YS News archive photo)
Glenn Deaton was the first purveyor of hardware in that space — a building that was built around 1853, and is one of the oldest in Yellow Springs.
Deaton opened Deaton Hardware Co. on Jan. 24, 1927, and operated it until his tragic death in March 1949 when a drunk driver killed him as he ran across the street to open the store for a customer on a Saturday night. His son, Wilbur, then ran the store until selling it to the Downing family in 2000. They passed the torch to Gilah Pomeranz and Shep Anderson in 2017. Four years later, the Badgers took over.
Under the latest owners, the hardware store grew into more than just a retail space for tools, pipes and seeds — to help offset the costs of doing business, Yellow Springs Hardware hosted ticketed comedy shows, musical performances, craft workshops, aviation instruction, improv classes and more.
“The hardware store has always been a lot of different things to a lot of different people in the community,” Badger said. “I think that’s why so many of us felt a sense of ownership in it.”
One Response to “The Badgers hang up the hammer — YS Hardware to close”
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This is a bummer. The Hardware store has bailed me out more than a few times when I’ve been back in YS helping mom with projects on the house. Tough business environment competing with the Big Boxes and Amazon. Hardware stores need a steady flow of customers due to how much money they have tied up in inventory. I wish the Badgers well in whatever direction life takes them and commend them for having given it a ‘go’. Godspeed folks.