MANKATO — For Dave Neiman, the comment from a customer who came into his new store in Mankato this week was exactly what he’d hoped to hear.

“There was a guy in here who said it’s just like an old fashioned hardware store without the creaking floor,” said Neiman, owner of Ace Hardware in the Belle Mar Mall.

“We pack a lot of merchandise into a small area.”

Dave’s son, Brad, manages the new 12,500-square-foot store. He said some see it as counterintuitive to open a family owned hardware store in a land of giant home improvement stores.

“People say this is a mistake, going into a town with three big boxes. But we’ve been in towns where all three big boxes came in and our business always went up,” Brad said.

This is the ninth Ace hardware store opened by the family in southern Minnesota, and one of its largest. Dave started in St. Peter with the Ace Arrow Hardware store.

Brad, 26, has been in the business since he was 14. “The rule for us kids was you had to be as tall as mom to start working in the store.”

Brad said there is one area where the big stores can’t keep up. “It’s customer service. They can’t compete. We know where everything is and how to use it. We can have you in and out in 15 minutes.”

Dave said they compete on prices as well, thanks to the Ace buying power. “Nationally, the number of small hardware stores has declined, but a new Ace opened every two days last year. They’re the largest hardware wholesaler in the world. They had $12 billion in sales in America last year.”

Over the years, Dave found what items to stock to fill customers’ needs:

The store has a 76-foot-long nut and bolt section where customers can buy single bolts or screws.

People can buy rope, electrical wire and copper pipe by the foot.

The store is a repair buff’s dreamland. “If you bought ready-to-assemble furniture and you’re missing a unique piece, we have that part. If you have a crib you haven’t used for years and it’s missing a part, we have it. If you need the little knob on a lamp, we have it,” Dave said.

The store also boasts a broad plumbing selection. “In our Rochester store, we have plumbers come to us rather than the wholesalers because we have what they’re looking for.”

Special services, such as building a new window frame for someone or a key center that includes the ability to make discounted auto keys with chips in them, also make for a loyal customer base, Dave said.

One of Neiman’s peers, Richard Thomes, says Neiman is a master in the industry.

“Dave is a very aggressive, very good business person. He treats his employees very well so I think he has loyal employees.”

Thomes, who runs Thomes Bros. Hardware in Arlington, is also immediate past president of the National Retail Hardware Association.

“Dave understands very well what customers want. They want convenience, they want customer service, they have very limited time and don’t want to spend the day shopping,” Thomes said.

“What he brings that Menards and Home Depot and Lowe’s don’t, is you can park in front of the door, run in, he has the inventory, you can grab it, if you have a problem they can help you fix it and you can get in the car and get out of there.”

The neatly organized store, containing some 23,000 different items, was a flurry of activity recently as they readied for opening.

They stocked the entire store in three weeks. “The Ace Hardware guys said they’d bet us money we couldn’t do it that fast,” Dave said. “They said it’d take twice as long. We had a lot of people here — 40 at the peak.”

Said Brad: “Dad’s really good at organizing.”