‘A dollar down and a firm handshake.’ How Fresno Ag Hardware survived 150 years

Fresno Ag Hardware has been around so long that Patrick Marchese has to ask for clarification when he runs into someone who remembers going to the “old store.”

Most often, they’re remembering the flagship location, which opened on Blackstone Avenue at Gettysburg in 1968, back when that part of town was still considered north Fresno.

That store operated for 40 years before leasing troubles forced its relocation to a spot just up Gettysburg Avenue in 2008.

But those closer to Marchese in age (he’s 72), may have memories of the other Fresno Ag Hardware store.

That one opened the decade prior at Blackstone and Princeton avenues, just across from Lafayette Elementary. That’s where Marchese went to school. He could see the store from across the yard and would point it out with pride.

“That’s my dad’s store,” he’d say.

It’s his store now.

Or partly, at least. Marchese is a minority owner, along with his sister Michelle Williams, whose son Ian Williams works as the company’s chief operating officer.

“It’s truly a family business.”

150 years of Fresno Ag

Of course, Fresno Ag had been operating for a half-century before Marchese’s father, John Rosetta, even came into the picture.

The business started as Fresno Agricultural Works in 1876 and was famously responsible for creating, and then cranking out, the Fresno scraper, a horse-drawn proto-bulldozer that revolutionized agriculture, among other things. Along with digging ditches for the Valley’s irrigation systems, the Fresno scraper was used to dig trenches in World War I and even helped build the Panama Canal.

At one point, Fresno Agricultural Works took up nearly a full city block near Tulare and L streets.

Rosetta was hired as a janitor after returning home from World War II; the only work he could get. But he spent the next decade learning everything he could about the business, so that when he eventually took over it was “a dollar down and a handshake and John Rosetta was now the proud owner of the hardware division of Fresno Agricultural Works,” says Rosetta’s grandson, Ian Williams.

Rosetta relocated the store from downtown in 1953, renamed it Fresno Ag Hardware, and brought on his brother James Rosetta as a co-owner.

Together, the pair turned the equipment manufacturer-hardware store into an institution.

It is the oldest continually operating business in Fresno — 150 this month, which the store is celebrating with an Anniversary Bucket Sale, June 5-7 at both its Fresno and Clovis locations.

Customers can fill a five-gallon bucket (with anything that fits) and get 25% off (any regularly priced items).

“One-hundred-and-fifty years is not just a milestone,” according to Williams. “It’s a testament to the loyalty of our customers and the dedication of every team member who has ever walked through our door. This community built us, and we are proud to keep serving it.”

A one-stop shop for just about anything

On any given day, you’ll still find a line of people queued up for a bag of free popcorn; a nostalgic holdover from the original store.

You’ll still hear the grinding whir of keys being made, the ringing of some random phone and staff members, (some of whom have worked at the store longer than Williams has been alive) asking customers if they can be of any help.

And you’ll still find the store stocked with … just about anything.

Over the years, Fresno Ag earned a reputation for having products no one else did.

Yes, there was the odd-shaped pipe fitting and obscure-sized nuts and bolts, which were stocked loose in hundreds of bins. But the store also became known for its random gifts and housewares. Think: Coca-Cola napkin dispensers, dust pans with the John Deere logo, a Superman lunch box.

Williams estimates there are now 80,000 different SKU’s (or individual products) in Fresno Ag’s current flagship store.

That’s everything from fishing tackle, hunting gear, guns and ammo, to the staples of every day carry, (things like tactical flashlights and folding knives). There’s a full section for work clothes (Carhartt pants, jackets and the like), plus aisles for cleaning supplies, home goods and power tools.

Fresno Ag is a certified Stihl dealer and expanded its service department with technicians capable of working on two and four-stroke engines for chainsaws and weed eaters.

The store also finds and follows trends, by listening, and being receptive to its customers, Williams says.

It recently began stocking NeeDoh squeeze toys, which surprised Williams in its popularity among parents. There’s also the decorative porch geese statues, and accompanying costumes, which tend to sell as fast as the store can get them in stock, William says, though there was a gaggle of them near the patio section just off the front door last week.

There’s a lavender-lit aisle with a variety of indoor plants (a trend that hit during the pandemic) and two freezers at the front of the store that carry homemade pies and Country Fair Cinnamon Rolls, the latter of which was, at one point, the single best-selling item in the store, Williams says.

The entire back section of Fresno Ag is dedicated to “home preservation.”

That’s a word Williams chooses deliberately to differentiate the store from other big box retailers who deal with contractors and the like.

“Toilets are always going to leak,” he says.

“There is always a screw that is going to come loose.”

It’s the core of the business. But that can be a gateway to something more, especially when his staff can engage directly with customers.

In that way, Fresno Ag Hardware is as much a philosophy, as anything.

“How do we make Fresno a better place?” Williams ask.

“We do that by empowering people.”

And by reinvesting money back into the business, “to open up more stores, to serve more people.”

In 2023, the company saw its first expansion outside of Fresno when it opened a 10,000-square-foot “bite-sized” store at the Trading Post shopping center in Clovis. Williams says that’s how he sees the business moving forward and that’s he’d like to open another five new stores over the next 15 years.