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#SUNOCO GAS STATION WEATHER DISPLAY DRIVER#
Stiles even notices inspection stickers and will alert a driver to an impending expiration. Most customers these days tend to have different expectations: Some are surprised that McIntyre and other pump jockeys will wash windshields and check oil. Gerry Torpey, a repair customer from Galloway Township, agrees. "We treat everybody like an individual," he says. The 71-year-old Southampton resident pumps gas from 8 a.m. Longtime employees such as Bernard McIntyre also give the station personality. We like people to feel they're coming to visit family, not a bunch of strangers." "Those big shamrocks out front? Lou made them, with lights and all.
#SUNOCO GAS STATION WEATHER DISPLAY FULL#
"We have two sheds full of decorations, and we create our own stuff," Wilson says. The station also commemorates 9/11 Stiles has worn a red, white, and blue tie to work every day since. The 42-year-old Mount Laurel resident explains that while Christmas and Easter are big, so are Mother's Day, Father's Day, and all the patriotic holidays. "I'm a mechanic, I've always been a mechanic, and I love that. Since 2007, Shawn Wilson and his wife, Darlin-Jo (Louis and Eleanor's daughter), have run the business, with Wilson inheriting responsibility for the decorations. If you do a good job, the customers will come to you."
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"I would say our biggest competitor now is probably Wawa," Stiles says, "but I've always said don't worry about the competition. Who could have predicted 40 years ago the emergence of a onetime dairy-store chain as a gas-retailing powerhouse? These and other shrewd practices have helped the business not only survive but also thrive despite new traffic patterns, ever-more-complex vehicles, and new challengers in the market. A gas station is essentially an advertisement, and curb appeal doesn't apply only to selling houses: Stiles Sunoco catches your eye, even if you're doing 50.Įarly on, the station also drew in people by hosting car washes and similar fund-raisers for local schools - events that inspired more decorating. The affable Stiles, who at one point owned two other gas stations in Burlington County, is certainly folksy - and surely no fool. Since day one, we have never, ever charged for a cup of coffee." "I swore that if I ever had a business, I would give the coffee away. "I remember when I was a farmer out in New Lisbon, pruning those blueberry bushes in cold weather, and thinking, 'Man, I don't have the money for a cup of coffee,' " Stiles recalls. Patrick's Day decorations are cheery, the chairs are comfy, and the coffee is free. "We call it the lounge, and we make it as comfortable as possible," he says, showing me a waiting area where the St. "We always decorated large at home, and when we got this business, she started decorating the lounge and then the outside."
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"I have to give my Eleanor credit for the decorations," says Stiles, 72, who lives in Hainesport with his wife of almost 50 years. And with its exuberant holiday displays and smiling service, the station is a small-town island in a sea of sprawl. Prices and a whole lot more may have changed since 1969, but Stiles still wears a tie daily (and a costume occasionally). A gallon of gas cost 19.9 cents and Route 38 was two placid lanes of pavement when Louis Stiles opened his Sunoco station in Mount Laurel.