What the hell is a “material handling specialist” and why would you need a review for one?

Read on, friends.

One day we got a crazy notion to build a coffee table out of a vintage suitcase and wanted to top the legs with a set of caster wheels (those swivelly things on the front end of shopping carts.) But where on God’s green earth do you find caster wheels?

The answer is FE Bennett Co., located on NE Broadway in the heart of the Lloyd District. The storefront has a distinctly spartan esthetic—in fact, it’s mostly empty apart from a platoon of hand trucks and a shelf of caster wheels. Don’t be fooled. The back of the store is a gargantuan warehouse packed to the rafters with tools and gadgets for lifting stuff, moving stuff, and storing stuff—from cargo straps to pallet jacks to gantry cranes. Basically, if you have to do some heavy lifting, FE Bennett is your go-to place.

The business got its start during the Depression, when a lumberyard mechanic named Forrest Entiat Bennett noticed that many lumberyards, sawmills, and warehouses in Portland still used old-fashioned caster wheels that tended to skid sideways. Bennett persuaded the Bassick Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut to send him a truckload of high-quality swivel casters. He sold the lot, and things sort of took off from there. His son Walter eventually took over the business and expanded into glides, hand trucks, dollies, and other dock and warehouse equipment. Today the company is owned by his grandson and granddaughter, Don and Susan.

The company’s catalog is a stunning example of hardware porn. (No, not hardcore porn—hardware porn.) If boltless pallet racks don’t get you rolling, try the primary-color stacking hopper bins. And if caster wheels make you drool—well, hold tight, tiger, because some of these are big enough to support a 747.

FE Bennett stocks thousands of items, but what it’s really good at, Don says, is  solving problems for its customers.

Serving Portland since: 1930

Neighborhood: Lloyd District

Oddball claim to fame: The store’s website lets you build your own handtruck.

(In)famous customer: Guitarist Jerry Garcia once dropped in to buy a new set of casters for his amplifier.

Longest serving employee: Don first started helping out with the family business in 1965, but his sister Susan has actually worked there for the longest consecutive stretch of time.