Spotlight on Hooksett Rent a Tool

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This business is located at 43 Allenstown Rd. (Route 3 & 28) in the building that also houses Dunkin Donuts and the Allenstown Laundromat. Kevin Cate is the business owner.

The business is open Monday to Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Saturday, 8:00 a.m. to 12 noon. For inquiries, call 603-625-4944, send an e-mail to Kevin Cate, visit the web site, or visit Facebook.

The business has been successfully operating for over 10 years.

Goods and Services

[Allenstown Alt (AA)] What types of goods and services does your business offers to customers?

[Kevin Cate (KC)] We rent, sell, and service outdoor power equipment. Everything from lawn mowers and string trimmers to small portable generators, aerators, overseeders, plate compactors, earth moving equipment like backhoes, a small 30 HP John Deere tractor with a brush hog attachment, Bobcat Skid Steers, mini-excavators, and large generators that are towable and can provide temporary power for outdoor events such as weddings. We can also service customer equipment.

Most Popular Product or Service

[AA] What would you consider to be the most popular product or service that you offer?

{KC] That's a tough question. Our most popular rental item would be our earth moving equipment, like the Bobcat Skid Steers and the John Deere Backhoe Loader.

On the sales side, we are a Redmax and Greenworks dealer. Redmax makes zero-turn mowers, walk-behind mowers, backpack blowers, string trimmers. We sell a lot of backpack blowers and string trimmers to landscapers and homeowners. Those are probably our most popular sales items.

Why Allenstown?

[AA] What was it that helped you decide to locate your business in Allenstown?

[KC] It was kind of a default. We had been down on Bypass 28 in Hooksett for eight years. It was a small facility, only about 2800 square feet, but we had about an acre of land. But all the larger pieces of equipment were outside and we didn't have a nice clean space where we could display products for retail sale.

When the owner of the Hooksett property notified us that they put the property up for sale, the asking price was more than what we believed it was worth. So we decided to look for a new facility.

Believed it or not, there were not a lot of facilities that could accommodate our business with shop space, space to store and maintain our equipment and other people's equipment, and have an office and retail space.

A friend of mine knew the Grossman's who owned this building in Allenstown. When we came to look it over, I was a little hesitant at first, but other facilities we looked at didn't have the exposure that this facility had. The traffic count here in the plaza and on Route 3 & 28 lent itself to great exposure for our business.

We made the decision to move here knowing that it was only seven miles from our old facility so we did not expect to lose any of our customers because of the distance. Then I looked at how far we were from Concord and it was only nine miles along Manchester St. to Interstate 93.

This opened up a new market for us in Concord. At the same time we moved, Taylor Rental also moved from South Main St. to north Concord near the State Prison, so we now get Concord customers because it is easier to come here than to go to the other facility. It worked out very well for us.

I have to say that we have been so very welcomed by folks in the community, and it's really been a blessing for us to be here. I know the area and still refer to Sully's as Bi-Wise. Our business might have grown more rapidly than it has except that we moved right during the height of the pandemic, in May 2020.

Business has continued to grow. We took on some new product lines this year like Generac and DR and we have the space to display the products for people to see.

One obstacle that we still have to overcome is that people don't realize that we also sell equipment, and that is probably because of the business name.

We kept the same name because we needed that continuity. We also learned that some people thought we had gone out of business because we moved. A lot of customers would come only once or twice a year. In the Spring, they would rent a dethatcher for their lawn and in the Fall come back for an aerator. When they saw the car dealer there instead, they thought, oh well, too bad.

But over the past few years, people slowly realized we are still here. We have now been in business for over 10 years and to change the name would still be detrimental.

Community Outreach

[AA] What community outreach activities have you engaged in or plan to engage in?

[KC] We get 40 tickets every year to Fisher Cats games and we offer them to folks in the community. With the inflation and the high cost of things like food and gas, it seemed that a family might not be able to afford to go to a game. It's wonderful to me to see people come to pick up tickets and see their children's eyes light up when they learn they are going to a baseball game. We have been doing this for the past few years. We advertise them on the local Facebook sites. This year the response was so overwhelming that we bought 20 more tickets.

Recently someone from out of state came to rent a brush hog because their elderly sister whom they were visiting had been unable to maintain her lawn. I dropped off the machine and showed them how to use it. The lady said her lawn mower was not working, so I took it to the shop, fixed it, and brought it back, explaining there would be no charge.

I thought there might be a lot of elderly people in the Allenstown, Pembroke area who are in a similar predicament. I want to put together some local landscapers so that, as we find people who need help, we can get a landscaper to mow their lawn once a week. It's a work in progress since the landscapers have told me that they are not unwilling to help, but are hard pressed to fit that one extra lawn into their schedule. We'll keep working on it.

Plans for the Near Future

[AA] What are your business plans for the near future?

Our goal for the next few years is to help our commercial customers who are facing labor shortages. We are looking for rental equipment solutions that one person can operate but do the work of two or three people. We are always looking for new or different product lines that will fit into our core business and the markets that we serve.

One big challenge is getting the spare parts that we need.

Generac and DR were great additions this year. Greenworks makes all battery-powered lawn and garden equipment and that's the way the industry is going. In fact, we just sold our first battery-powered zero-turn mower.

[AA] I think that covers everything I need. I thank you for giving your time for this very informative interview.

[KC] You are welcome.

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This story was originally published on allenstown-alt.org by Michael Frascinella