President Joe Biden stopped into D.C.’s oldest hardware store on Tuesday around 12:30 p.m. to promote changes to the Paycheck Protection Program, marking his second official visit to a local business since his swearing in.

The president had a “broadly uneventful ride” over to W.S. Jenks & Son in Trinidad, according to the White House pool report. “Usual gaggles of people holding up cell phones as motorcade made its way through DC’s streets before reaching our destination,” it said.

This morning the hardware store tweeted out that it would be closed until 1:00 p.m. “for scheduled building maintenance.”

We will be closed today until 1 pm for scheduled building maintenance that prevents us from letting customers in the store.

— Jenks Hardware (@wsjenks) March 9, 2021

“Hey buddy, how are you?” the 46th president called out to an employee when he entered the store’s main floor.

During his visit he spoke with Mike Siegel, who co-owns the store with his dad Jerry, and Mary Anna Ackley, the owner of Little Wild Things Farm, which rents space in the building. They discussed the challenges of owning a small business during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the pool report.

W.S. Jenks & Son received a PPP loan last April to help cover salaries for its 17 employees. It applied for and received a second PPP loan late last month after the Biden Administration established a special two-week period when only businesses with fewer than 20 employees could apply for relief.

“A big portion of our business is actually government sales and commercial sales,” Siegel told Biden. “For the first four of five months [of the pandemic], that was completely gone. That’s honestly usually about 60% of our annual revenue.”

From behind two face masks, Biden explained to Siegel that he changed the application parameters because “bigger businesses that in fact weren’t supposed to qualify” for loans had still received them, which Biden blamed on decisions made by the previous administration.

Biden’s 30-minute visit to the hardware store also coincided with the House taking up his $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package. The stimulus bill — the third since the pandemic began last March — is meant to be a centerpiece of Biden’s first 100 days in office. Once it passes the House and Biden signs it, most Americans will qualify for $1,400 stimulus checks, and those getting unemployment benefits will continue to get an extra $300 a week through early September.

Biden, double masked, is at Jenks hardware store in northeast DC. “Don’t jump, we need you,” he tells store staff, who are watching from a balcony. pic.twitter.com/wVBbTAga1G

— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) March 9, 2021

Like most small businesses owners around the region, the pandemic forced W.S. Jenks & Son co-owners Jerry and Mike Siegel to rethink how they do business. Last May they curtailed online ordering to only Washington-area customers as a way to handle low inventory and keep up with requests, the elder Siegel told HillRag. They also secured the $162,800 PPP loan so they could keep paying employees during the early, uncertain months of the pandemic.

Though the past year has put an unprecedented strain on small businesses, W.S. Jenks & Son had already weathered its fair share of storms over the course of its 155-year history in Washington. It first opened in 1866 in what is now the Clyde’s in Chinatown. The owners sold goods like animal traps, butter churns and horseshoes. In 1986, priced out by rising rents, then-proprietor Victor Siegel moved the store to a larger location in Brentwood. He later called his decision to sell the property “a mistake.”

Jerry Siegel relocated the store three decades later to a former car dealership at 910 Bladensburg Road NE. Now he stocks everything from paint and building materials to bomb disposal supplies. (This is D.C., after all.)

Over the years Siegel has found a number of creative ways to increase the brick-and-mortar shop’s profile outside of the home improvement market. He turned a back room into a theater during the 2015 Fringe Festival. He currently rents out space to two urban farms — one on the roof and another in a parking garage-turned-storage space.

Biden’s visit to W.S. Jenks & Son comes about six weeks after he stopped by Call Your Mother in Georgetown — the first food establishment the new president visited while in office. Biden waved from the car while his son Hunter and members of the Secret Service got out and picked up their bagel order. The presidential visit led to a major boost in sales, co-owner Andrew Dana told DCist.

Democratic presidents tend to get out and about in the city more than their Republicans counterparts. President Donald Trump only visited one local restaurant while in office, the BLT Prime in the Trump International Hotel. There is no record of Trump entering any hardware stores.

Members of the Trump administration did occasionally dine out at local restaurants, where they were often confronted by angry patrons.

Biden’s not the only new White House resident making the rounds in D.C. Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff visited Park View’s Hook Hall with Mayor Muriel Bowser Monday. The bar and restaurant also distributes meals and care kits to local restaurant industry workers.