Brinkmann’s Thinks Bigger With Miller Place Relocation

In 1976, Tony Brinkmann and his wife Pat opened the first Brinkmann’s Hardware in Sayville, New York, on Long Island’s South Shore. Over the years, the family-owned company has expanded to seven stores across Long Island. 

That history of growth continues today, as Brinkmann’s enters the home stretch of its newest store in Miller Place, New York. Brinkmann’s is relocating its existing store about one mile west to a new 30,000-square-foot location designed from the ground up to offer customers a broader product selection and keep more projects under one roof.

“We were bursting at the seams,” says Hank Brinkmann, principal of Brinkmann’s. “While that may sound like a good thing, we learned to see that as a warning sign that we could be leaving business on the table and not properly serving the market, therefore leaving ourselves vulnerable to competition seeing opportunity.”  We knew it was time for a larger format and always look forward to building from the ground up to ensure the best offering. 

Making Room for Growing Categories

While nearly every department in the current store will gain additional space, Brinkmann’s is placing a particular focus on paint, outdoor living and lawn and garden.

The new location will also add a 4,000-square-foot garden center, something the current store does not offer. Live goods have become one of the fastest-growing categories across all Brinkmann’s locations, with some locations selling plants from outdoor apron areas.

Building materials will expand as well. The new store will carry project lumber, allowing customers to purchase basic building materials alongside the hardware and supplies needed to complete a project.

Brinkmann says the expanded assortment will help customers shop for their projects at one place, allowing employees to have to say no less often. 

“In the past, we’ve lost the whole project when we didn’t have one piece of it,” he says. “This store is going to change that.”

Moving to a Higher-Traffic Site

The new location is one mile away from its current store in Miller Place, which is the company’s highest-performing store per square foot, and will be situated at a larger intersection, expanding its customer reach. 

The roughly three-acre property is located near the town’s main intersection and will significantly increase the store’s exposure. About 30,000 vehicles pass the current store each day, compared with roughly 56,000 vehicles at the new site. The property also offers access from a side street and the main traffic light.

“Not only is it a site that accommodates a larger offering, but it’s a site that has much better circulation and exposure,” Brinkmann says. 

Building from the ground up also allowed Brinkmann’s to design the building and property around how customers and employees use the store. 

The new location will include flush curbs and automatic doors, making entrances easier to access with carts and strollers. The parking lot will feature wider spaces, giving customers more room to load purchases and accommodate contractors driving larger vehicles. 

Behind the scenes, loading docks, a 13,000-square-foot basement and freight elevator will assist the store employees in receiving and moving inventory more efficiently. 

“One of the things that we’ve learned over the years is how important all the little details are that build up to give us a better overall offering to our customer,” Brinkmann says. 

Going Bigger

The Miller Place relocation shows the company’s broader move toward larger stores with more complete product assortments. 

All of Brinkmann’s existing locations range from 9,000 square feet to 37,000 square feet. Brinkmann says any new stores they open moving forward will fit in the larger end of that range. 

“Whenever we expand, we want the stores to be larger and have bigger, more complete offerings,” he says. 

That strategy gives stores more room to serve customers completing everything from small repairs to larger projects without sending them elsewhere for missing products. 

The Miller Place location has operated in the community since 2015, and local officials also had input as plans for the new property moved forward. From the beginning, Brinkmann says local community representatives supported the project, asking that the new store resemble the company’s flagship store in Sayville, rather than use a basic retail-box design. 

“We don’t like to pull back and just build a cheap box,” he says. “We like to make it look like it fits in the community.” 

Brinkmann’s purchased the site in 2021 and has spent the time since moving the project along through planning and permitting. Brinkmann says similar approval processes remain one of the biggest challenges as the company plans additional large-format stores. 

“We’ve got big eyes for growth,” he says. “We’ve got more new stores coming and new large stores in the works.