The Day – Family-owned auto shop in Quaker Hill closing after 80 years

Waterford — A white, homey building at 73 Aged Norwich Road has been the site of Scotch Cap Service Station, a neighborhood auto repair shop, exactly where a Dunbar has been doing work beneath the hood for about 80 many years.

Dennis “Denny” Dunbar said he set a signal on the front window when he took over in 1979, but the company has operated devoid of a big indication ever considering that it stopped doubling as a gasoline station in the late 1990s.

Indication or no, his consumers know in which to uncover him, and most of his new business enterprise has been as a result of phrase-of-mouth.

Now, while, there is another sign on the window.

“To our valued and loyal customers, Scotch Cap Service will be closing our restore business on September 30th,” it suggests. “We have deeply appreciated your patronage and loyalty by way of these approximately 80 yrs my family has been below at this area.”

Dunbar, the 3rd generation of family members mechanics to operate the organization, is closing the shop his grandfather, Harold Dunbar, bought in the early 1940s after doing the job for the first owner. The store has been in the relatives, and has been a cornerstone in the Quaker Hill community, at any time since. His grandfather handed it down to his father, Kenneth Dunbar, who passed it down to him.

Dunbar reported some customers have been coming to the store for a longer period than he is been all around, adding some regulars will end by just to chat.

Soon after functioning at Scotch Cap for nearly 40 several years, Dunbar, 62, said he is heading to retire. His two daughters failed to want to function the shop, nor did his loyal assistant mechanic for the past 20 years, Patrick “Ricky” Rowe.

Rowe grew up in the property following doorway to the store and was 18 years previous when he started off working with Dunbar. He reported he received to devote 20 many years doing work with his finest buddy Denny and he treasures most the knowledge, steerage and enjoy that he’s received from the Dunbar household. 

But, unable to preserve up with the technology concerned in autos these days, Rowe said he is completely ready to attempt one thing new.

With no a person to hand the business enterprise down to, Dunbar chose to shut it and put it on the sector.

“I had a excellent time,” he said. “I would not have finished it for so extensive if I hadn’t.”

So far, the developing has had only a single present, Dunbar said, and he is not certain whether or not it will continue being an vehicle fix shop. He reported for the sake of the community, he hopes it does, but that will be up to whoever purchases it.

The building appears to be like a property, and at one level it literally was Dunbar’s dwelling. Dunbar said his entire family lived upstairs before shifting into properties on Dunbar Street, the avenue named immediately after the family members.

Although Dunbar said he is grateful for the small business, which helped set his daughters via college, he is completely ready for a change of rate.

“I’m content I last but not least got to a position wherever I can retire,” he reported.  “It’s time to gradual down.”

Some of Dunbar’s regular prospects are not as satisfied about the closure.

Steve Kenn and his husband or wife Kim McCaig were at the store Monday, not for a car or truck difficulty but to “yell” at Dunbar for leaving, as McCaig set it. Kenn mentioned he went to faculty with Dunbar and has been coming to the shop for a long time.

“He’ll be missed,” McCaig stated.

She mentioned Dunbar was trustworthy, having been there for big times in McCaig’s family’s everyday living, these as the time Dunbar checked her daughter’s auto right before she moved to Las Vegas.

Bryan Sayles, who has been a consumer for the 11 yrs he is lived in Quaker Hill, explained Dunbar and Rowe as “down to earth, truthful with pricing and honest,” features he claimed are tricky to arrive by.

Sayles explained Dunbar and Scotch Cap are a “dying breed” of pleasant, small community automotive shops, noting matters now are “really company and impersonal.”

Dunbar stated he worked hard to hold the enterprise tiny and to get to know his clients.

“For a consumer,” he explained, “it is excellent to know who is performing on your car.”

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