Family business sticking to old fashioned service.
Story by Tessa Dufresne

The typical old-fashioned gas stations normally pictured in 1950’s movies still do exist in the 21st century, but they are dwindling to extinction.    There is still one thriving in the heart of Reynoldsburg.    Reynoldsburg hosts a full service gas station and its owners plan on sticking around until they see their very last customer disappear.

   Jo Lynne Gates thinks that will not be happening anytime soon. “We have the same guests always coming in, they depend on us and, in a way, we feel like we are all related,” she said.

   The Sunoco, stationed on the corner of Main Street and Aida Drive, has been there since 1963 when Buck Spangler built it as a full service station. Next, Thomas C. Young bought the Sunoco and in 1979 he took on two eager employees, Frank and Jo Lynne Gates. Jo Lynne had been around the gas station business since 1972 when her father began his own station and it became a “big part of [her] life.” As for her husband, Frank, he just enjoyed the occupation and the people he met while he was at work. The two loved the business and its location, and felt attached to its customers, thus deciding to purchase it from Young in 1995.

   Although the concept of pulling into a gas station, staying in the warm car, and having a gas attendant pump your gas, wash your car windows, check the air in all four tires, and check the oil and transmission fluid, is becoming a thing of the past, Gates says that they will keep two of their twelve pumps as full service because of both their vast amount of regular, loyal customers, but also because of Reynoldsburg’s large elderly community that will continue paying the extra 30-50 cents for full service.

   She also believes that along with the elderly community comes an even larger youth population in Reynoldsburg. Consequently, the great number of young adults has caused some of the problems for the full service stations of America.

   “The younger generation was taught to do things like pump gas on their own, they have never seen differently and that’s, I think, why full service has started to go away.”

   Another reason for the declining popularity of full service gas stations is that people are more worried now, than in past years, about saving money when they fill up their tanks. “During the summer, when prices were up to $4 a gallon, the majority of our customers were so precise on how much they wanted, coming in saying, ‘Only $10 exact,’ then complaining that they barely got enough, but really, what some do not understand is that we are in the same boat as they are,” explained Gates.

   To run a full service gas station, or any type of gas station for that matter, owners must buy their gas in bulk from oil companies and then put it into their ground for their customers. In reality, owners have to pay about the same prices as their customers. In addition to that, when full service stations first popped up, the idea was sound because of the amount of additional money the station would make for performing the routine services, but today, they do not really see those extra few cents because of all the money they have to shell out to put towards credit card fees and other new age charges.

   These details are just small in the big scheme of things for the Gates.

   “We are an American, family owned station. Our few employees have been here for years, some even started before we bought it, and all in all, our customers feel comfortable when they come in and see the same familiar faces day after day. I have seen some of my customers grow up and bring their children in. We are like one big family and we will continue to be here for them,” she said in closing.