BARTOW -- Trina Waits is sleeping better these days.

Before the Lowe's home improvement store opened in Bartow in October, "I was scared half to death. I didn't sleep nights," said Waits, the manager of the Bartow Ace Hardware store a few blocks away.

Customer traffic and sales declined about 10 percent for a month and a half following the opening, she said, but now "I feel we've made it over the hump."

Sales for the past couple of months were very close to last year's performance for the same period, said Waits, who declined to discuss specific figures. She attributed the rebound to her loyal customers.

"When you have anything new, people are going to go to it," she said. "This town has supported us 100 percent. This town has been wonderful to us since we opened."

The hardware store at Church Street and U.S. 17 opened in July 2003.

Waits acknowledged she can't compete with Lowe's and the other "big box" chains on some products -- lumber and appliances. But then Lowe's doesn't have cookie jars with free vanilla and peanut butter cookies at its cash register.

The cookies symbolize the store's hometown atmosphere and personalized customer service, the factors that in the long run will allow Bartow Ace to compete with its big neighbor, she said.

The Ace store can compete in niche sales, such as screen repair and propane tank refills, Waits said.

The timing of the Lowe's opening during the Christmas shopping season also helped Ace, she said.

"People that Christmas shop, shop everywhere," Waits said.

The store has also benefited from people still rebuilding from the 2004 and 2005 hurricanes, she said. Some people are still rebuilding from the first storm, Hurricane Charlie, which struck Aug. 13, 2004.

The regular customers come in knowing which clerk to ask for help with a particular problem, Waits said. So it helped that only one of the store's 10 employees left since the Lowe's opening.

"I didn't want people coming in and not seeing the same people they'd seen before," she said.

That helps in enforcing "Trina's Law of Customer Service:" If you don't know enough to help a customer, ask at least two other employees, she said.

"When you go that extra little inch for a customer; they don't always get that," Waits said. "That customer is going to want to come back."