<p>Joey: I'm here in Aurora, Illinois at Gabriel's Auto Repair, which has been a staple in the community since the '80s when Uncle Gabe started it. Since then, Demitrius was following the footsteps of his uncle and truly creating a family business for the community. He brought in Felicia, who's heading the front office, and Brandon, who refers to himself as the modern day grease monkey. Let's check out Gabriel's.</p> <p>Joey: I'm here with Felicia, the office manager, or as she doesn't say I'm going to say it, the brains of the operation at Gabriel's Auto Repair. Felicia, thanks for having us.</p> <p>Felicia: Oh, thank you for coming. We've been waiting a while for that.</p> <p>Joey: Now tell us about the Gabriel's Auto Repair. It's been a staple in Aurora for quite some time, right?</p> <p>Felicia: Yeah. Uncle Gabe was Demitrius's paternal uncle. He opened the business in '89 here, I guess. But we stumbled across some papers yesterday that said the business was actually opened in '84.</p> <p>Joey: Wow.</p> <p>Felicia: So that's cool.</p> <p>Joey: So it's been this location since '89?</p> <p>Felicia: This location since '89.</p> <p>Joey: That's great. So you're taking care of your customers, quite literally sometimes. Do you even offer free services?</p> <p>Felicia: Oh yeah, definitely. I give customer rides home if they have to leave the car here. It's literally a family business here. And on top of that, we have family members that work at vendors. Not everyone has the financial stability to be able to have a petty cash fund in case the car does break down or in case something does happen. Here, we understand that. And we don't just send these special privileges to our regular customers, new customers as well.</p> <p>Joey: Wow.</p> <p>Felicia: If you come into our shop, we do our best to please you.</p> <p>Joey: And what type of work do you do?</p> <p>Felicia: Here at the shop?</p> <p>Joey: Yep.</p> <p>Felicia: We do a little bit of everything. As of right now, we are doing maybe about four transmission swaps, some engine swaps. We do exhaust work, emissions work, AC checks, tire rotations. We do a little bit of everything.</p> <p>Joey: Just a big bullet point list?</p> <p>Felicia: A little bit of everything. The only thing we don't really do is collision work, body work, we won't do that.</p> <p>Joey: Okay. Amazing. Felicia at Gabriel's Auto Repair. Now we're going to go check it out. Maybe the millennial grease monkey, we'll have a conversation with him as well.</p> <p>Felicia: Laughs and giggles [inaudible 00:02:34].</p> <p>Joey: Laughs and giggles.</p> <p>Joey: We're at Gabriel's Auto Body in Aurora, Illinois. I'm with Brandon. Brandon, what's your role here?</p> <p>Brandon: I'm more of the grease monkey. Anything the boss tells me, that's what I'm doing. That's how it goes around here.</p> <p>Joey: Yeah. Because you're right. A lot of times people think you're going to mechanics, they're going to charge for extra parts or things that you don't need. So how, how do you change that language for people to come in and feel comfortable just say, "Hey, here's my car. Fix it,"?</p> <p>Brandon: Consistency. All of our customers, we treat them with the same respect and we give everyone the same treatment. Everyone's just trying to go about their day, especially with the pandemic and everything going on. Everyone's just trying to go about their day. Last thing they want to worry about is about their vehicle, their transportation and stuff like that. So we just try to keep everything... We try to take all the weight on ourselves so that they don't have to.</p> <p>Joey: All right. I'm here with Demitrius, the owner and the lead tech at Gabriel's Auto Body in Aurora. Thanks for having us, man.</p> <p>Demitrius: No problem.</p> <p>Joey: Why did you decide to take over the family business?</p> <p>Demitrius: It was in the beginning of the pandemic. So it was one of those things where I was tired of working on cars or I had to accept that I loved it. So I decided that I loved it more and decided to take this trip myself.</p> <p>Joey: What has it been like?</p> <p>Demitrius: It's hard every day.</p> <p>Joey: Yeah, yeah.</p> <p>Demitrius: Yeah. It's hard. But with my customers, it makes it really worth it. There are a lot of great ones and you get to build relationships with them, what is what I love. And so it's been pretty good.</p> <p>Joey: Hard along the way. And speaking about your customers, because you guys, even Felicia was talking how you'll give discounts, you'll give rides home. There's all these things that you don't hear of from an auto repair shop or even these bigger dealers. They won't do that for you.</p> <p>Demitrius: Well, yeah. Some of them do, some of them don't, but we try to... everyone's welcome here. That's how we want to keep it. Everyone's family too, because we're all family here. So we try to build a tight relationship with them.</p> <p>Joey: Great. Demitrius keeping it all in the family. Gabriel's Auto Repair. Thanks, man.</p>