By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — Westport Hardware, selling nuts and bolts, gadgets and gizmos, and tools of all kinds since the 1920s, has completed its move to a new Post Road East location a few doors away from its former spot.

The move — from 616 to 606 Post Road East, at the other end of the Village Center parking lot — was carried out as business continued uninterrupted.

Although Westport Hardware’s new space is nearly next door to its former location, customers already seem to like the it better, according to store manager Gabriella Velez, 32, who runs the store with her parents Richard and Elda Velez.

“They like the traffic light,” right at the new location. “and they say that parking is better,” she said. “Everyone has been great.”

The store operated out of both locations while the move was in process, she said, starting the move on Oct. 10.

“We never closed,” Velez said. 

The family first moved a cash register to the new location, and synced it with a register left in the former space, and made sure that customers didn’t have to go back and forth between the two sites to get what they needed. 

Now, everything is unpacked and available to customers at 606 Post Road East.

The move was made at the request of the Village Center landlords because Pottery Barn, now located at 27 Main St., is moving to the site previously occupied by the hardware store. 

Westport Hardware’s new location accommodates the business on one floor with the same square footage as the previous store, Velez said last spring when the move was in the planning stages. Both retail properties are owned by Equity One Westport Village Center LLC.

The section of the shopping complex at 616 Post Road East that housed the hardware store has been demolished and construction for the new Pottery Barn store is underway.

Pottery Barn expects to move into its new store in April 2023, according to Nathaly Paulino, assistant store manager of the Main Street store.

Freelance writer Gretchen Webster, a Fairfield County journalist and journalism teacher for many years, was editor of the Fairfield Minuteman newspaper for 10 years and currently teaches journalism at Southern Connecticut State University.