For more than two decades, Alejandra Ramos has pointed customers to the right drywall screws and electrical wires at the Los Angeles hardware store where she works. Formerly known as Do it Best Hardware, in 2021, the small Highland Park storefront became the second outpost of Baller Hardware, a longtime family-run business that first started a few miles over in Silver Lake. Ramos stayed through the transition, helping a steady drip of customers with their home improvement plans and contracting needs.
Lately, Ramos has noticed a different clientele coming into the store. These customers aren’t here for hardware. Instead, they beeline for the shelves housing Baller Hardware’s cozy branded merchandise.
Ramos tells SFGATE that gaggles of teens will often sidle up to the stores, eager to buy soft sweatshirts bearing the Baller logo. Some people who come into Baller, having heard about the cool T-shirts and hats for sale, don’t even realize it’s a hardware store; she says some expect it to be a boutique, or even a hypebeast-y jointa la Supreme, eking out weekly merch drops…