By EMILY HALL
North Kitsap Herald intern

POULSBO — The first thing that might strike a customer walking into Coast Do It Best Hardware is the variety of merchandise.

Nuts, bolts, and wrenches? Got that and more. Walk along various aisles, past the sound of neighborly laughter and the faint smell of wood, and the shopper will find power tools, hand tools, sporting goods. In a whimsical mood? There’s some plastic flamingo lawn decorations. Want to get your “12” on? There’s Seahawks gear for next Sunday’s game. Like songbirds? There’s an aisle devoted to bird seed.

Whatever it is the shopper needs, Coast Do It Best guarantees they have it.

“Customer service is our specialty,” store owner Bonita Doerksen said. “If we don’t have it, we’ll find it for you.”

Store manager Nick McCallum’s philosophy is simple: to help others. He and his team of employees have joy in the work that they do, and they believe in passing on their good vibes to customers.

Coast Do It Best Hardware, in the Poulsbo Village shopping center, is celebrating its 20-year anniversary.

In June, the store had a 20th anniversary sale in appreciation of its customers. Much of the merchandise in the store was marked down by 20 percent or more and prizes were given away. Representatives of major hardware brands like Milwaukee and Channellock, as well as local Rotarians and hundreds of shoppers, attended the event. No celebration during summer could be complete without ice-cold slushies, as well as popcorn and cookies; Coast Do It Best provided that too.

Two months later, in August, Coast Do It Best won the North Kitsap Herald Readers’ Choice Award for the ninth year in a row. In response, the hardware store had a tent sale, attracting as many as 1,500 customers in four days.

What will become of Coast Do It Best Hardware in the future? Doerksen said she hopes to retire someday and “pass on the torch” to her two adult children, who have helped out with the store since their youth.