Nickel Cokes

For the past 22 years, Meeker's Hardware store has sold 5-cent Cokes, but all of that's about to change and Pepsi couldn't be happier about it, reports James Lomuscio in The New York Times (4/3/05). Sure, it was only three-ounces of Coke for that nickel, but Hal Meeker served it up because of the 26-foot-by-20-foot Coca-Cola advertisement "that has been painted (and re-painted)" on the side of his building (itself on the National Register of Historic Places) for nearly 90 years. It reads: "Delicious Refreshing 5¢ Coca-Cola." How could Hal Meeker help but make good on the offer? Besides, as one of Hal's customers comments, it "was a great, little bonus for coming into a hardware store." Well, the big news on White Street, where the Meeker family has run this hardware store for 122 years, is that the 5¢ Cokes will soon be replaced by 10¢ Pepsis.

The reason is, Coke asked Hal Meeker "to install a more complex and expensive soda fountain." Hal flat-out refused: "Basically, they came and said they would no longer use premixed canisters, and they were going to a soda-in-a-bag system. And they wanted us to rent a new fountain system from them, and the cost was ridiculous. It would have cost us between 20 cents to a quarter to give Coke away for a nickel." So, Hal rang up James Roach at Pepsi, who couldn't have be more delighted by the opportunity: "When you come into Danbury and head down White Street, that Coke sign is the first thing you see ... It's a pretty prominent landmark," says James The Meekers won't paint over the Coke sign, of course, but they will put a Pepsi sign right next to it. Not only that, but James negotiated to add a cooler selling bottles of Aquafina, Sierra Mist, Gatorade and Lipton iced teas in the store, selling for $1.25 apiece.

Hopefully, not much else will change at Meeker's Hardware (no website), where Alex, the family dog, can be found napping and a "well-worn wooden floor extends through a maze of aisles with seed and nail bins, barrels and rolls of barbed wire. The shelves are an eclectic mix of lighting fixtures and oil lanterns, cast-iron pans and paint cans. And there are scores of 19th century wooden drawers from which one of the Meekers will ferret out the right size bolt, screw or nut for a customer." Says Bart Gannon, another local retailer: "Good luck trying to find that in a big-box store." Predictably, Coke is now attempting to persuade Hal to install "a cooler offering eight-ounce Cokes in classic bottles, but Hal sounds like a man who has moved on: "I'm willing to listen," he says, "but I'm still going with Pepsi." He adds: "It wasn't my decision, it was theirs." Darn tootin'. Anyway, as Ruth Hoggard, a long-time customer notes: "It's not the 5-cent colas that sells Meeker's. It's the friendliness, the prices and the products."

Taken from Reveries “Cool News” weekday letter.