Kitch-N Collectibles rekindles memories with all sorts of household items...lovingly restored to working order. Owner Rich Boris retired from the Philadelphia Fire Department years ago.
Rather than sit around, he started tinkering with some old refrigerators and got them working again. Next thing he knew, he had three garages full of old household items, and that prompted him to open the store and share his treasures with customers.
Today, you may buy old mixers, irons, milkshake machines, and, yes, refrigerators. Everything on display has been taken apart, inspected, restored as needed and reassembled. Your purchase comes with a 30-day guarantee.
Boris says the appliances of yesteryear are surprisingly durable, generally made in the U.S.A., and created from parts intended to last.
Consequently, parts are often hard to come by, and the device you purchase may have been rebuilt from another machine which "donated" its pieces to the project.
Older machines are often simpler than their 21st-Century counterparts,. Refrigerators, for example, are not self-defrosting. That makes them more energy-efficient than you might think.
Today's refrigerators heat up once or more per day to prevent ice build-up. Oldsters do not, and once they reach temperature, they tend to stay quite cold. So a restored old refrigerator may actually use less power and keep food colder than a brand-new model. Boris installs brand-new gaskets from an aftermarket supplier.
He also has them freshly-painted by an auto-body shop, so any color you can imagine is possible. He also sells cookware from just about any decade of the last century, no non-stick products.
He also stocks Life Magazine from the 1930's to the 1970's and you can probably walk out with the edition that was on newsstands the week you were born. He has percolators but not more-modern coffee makers.
As you might have guessed, his ability to transform old appliances makes his repair services popular, too. The shop also has a selection of antique jewelry.
Kitch-N Collectibles is located at 6131 Ridge Avenue, just above Green Lane in Roxborough. It's a short drive off the Schuylkill Expressway. The shop is open every day but Monday. for more information, visit Kitch-N Collectibles website, or phone 267-335-2398.
