Robert Rickel, who along with two brothers founded a chain of home improvement stores that were precursors to retail giants like Home Depot and Lowe’s, died at 90

Robert Rickel, a Founder of Hardware Supermarkets, Dies at 90

By KATIE THOMASMARCH 13, 2014

Robert Rickel, who along with two brothers founded a chain of home improvement stores that were precursors to retail giants like Home Depot and Lowe’s, died on Sunday at his home in Boca Raton, Fla. He was 90.

His daughter, Karen Rickel Cohen, confirmed the death.

When Mr. Rickel and his two brothers, Alvin and Morty, opened their first stores in the 1950s, most hardware stores were small, locally owned operations that offered personable service but not a vast inventory. The Rickel Brothers stores, which were later known as Rickel Home Centers, aimed to change that by offering suburban customers a supermarket-style shopping experience along with salespeople who could offer detailed home improvement advice.

At its peak in the 1970s, the chain operated about 100 stores across New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Pennsylvania, and its advertising jingle was a fixture on local television and radio: “Rickel helps you do it better — do it better with Rickel.”

“Everybody knew our name, and our name was on the radio,” Ms. Cohen said. “People didn’t think it was a real name. They’d say, ‘Oh, there’s a Mr. Rickel?’ ”

Mr. Rickel was born on July 13, 1923, in Toledo, Ohio, shortly before his family moved to Newark, where he grew up. After graduating from Weequahic High School in 1942, he enlisted in the Army Air Forces and became a gunner on a B-17, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross, his family said.

After returning home, he and his brothers, who also served in World War II, followed their father into the heating business. But they soon grew interested in the retail market, and in 1953 opened their first store, in Union, N.J.

Mr. Rickel’s son, Kenneth, said the brothers’ focus was on customer service. “They prided themselves on the fact that there was somebody there you could ask questions of,” he said in an interview.

Rickel Home Centers, as well as other chains like Channel, were precursors to the do-it-yourself home centers that came to dominate the hardware industry. “He was a great retailer,” said Bernie Marcus, who co-founded Home Depot in 1979. “The Rickel stores were the premium home centers in New Jersey.”

The Rickels sold the chain in 1969 to the Supermarkets General Corporation, then the parent of Pathmark grocery stores. Mr. Rickel ran the company for 10 more years, his son said.

The Rickel stores struggled to compete against the rapidly expanding Home Depot chain, and the last of them eventually closed after a merger with Channel in the early ’90s.

In addition to his daughter and son, Mr. Rickel is survived by his wife, the former Evelyn Boxer; a sister, Miriam Aptekar; seven grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. Morty Rickel died in 1980 and Alvin Rickel in 2008.