For Fantastic Customer Service, Go to Marine Plus

I don’t have a boat, but if I did I would get all my supplies from Marine Plus. Here’s why.
One of our mic stands at CFUR broke. Well, it didn’t break, but the bolt holding it onto the desk did. Seems fairly straightforward to replace, but as it turns out, it was pretty tough. I spent the better part of the morning driving around town trying to find a music or hardware store that had one with the right thread and at the right length. Not that these places didn’t try to help, because they did, and without naming names let me just say this: shop local if you want people who will actually try to help, and if they don’t have something will still try to offer a solution.
Which is how I wound up at Marine Plus, a boating store. One of the guys at Northern Hardware (another case-study in customer service) surmised that it would likely have a selection of long bolts, one of which might serve our needs. He was right, but not without work. The guy at Marine Plus spent a good fifteen minutes searching through his stock to find something with the right thread before finally finding one that was about five feet longer than what we needed. So he cut it, then added some bolts in order to make sure it would stay secure on the desk. Then, he charged me nothing. Not for the part, not for the service– even though, as a radio station, we likely wouldn’t be giving him lots of repeat business. So I’m doing what I can– recommending Marine Plus to anyone wondering where they can go to get help with their boats– or their bolts.