Meet Stephen and Tony Dadah of Tonys Automotive Service in South Grafton

Today we’d like to introduce you to Stephen and Tony Dadah.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Tony’s Automotive was started by my father Tony Dadah in Worcester on Chandler St in 1978. He was a graduate of Worc Voc Tech and a veteran in the US Army. Running his business honestly and ethically he drew in a strong clientele. His son, my brother Tony Dadah Jr. worked for him from the time he opened his doors until he retired in 2007. Tony Jr. was still enrolled at Worc. Voc Tech in the automotive dept. when he started. I (Stephen Dadah) worked for my dad off and on over the years there but I ending up moving out of state for many years following other career choices. As automobiles became more computerized Tony Jr. learned and kept up on the technology and became a go to person in the Worcester auto shops for diag problems. At the end of a long and gratifying career Tony Sr. retired and Tony Jr. stepped away from the industry for a while going off to own and operate his own handyman business for several years. During that time period I worked for a couple of auto repair chains and saw just how dishonest and expensive this industry had really become and Tony even came to work with me at one of those chains for a short period of time and noticed the same. We decided that we could do better for this industry and decided to open our own repair shop. In 2012 we re-opened Tony’s Automotive Service on Madison St in Worc only 1 1/2 miles from the original location. Using the same name and even the original phone number we hope to draw back in some of the customers that we had when my dad was still in business. This idea did not work for us and we found ourselves almost out of business capital and without a strong clientele. We decided to make a change and we found a location in Grafton Ma where we both lived that better suited our needs for size and price. We got involved in a couple of networking groups and showed these people that a small honest and ethical auto shop does exist and we hoped for a chance to earn their business. We found that our area was starving for this and we were off and running. Our business is driven by word of mouth and referral advertising and we work very hard to earn the business of each and every customer every day every visit.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It was very tough when we first started, finding a location that we could afford and had a clientele as well. Our first location was a bust. We were renting one bay of a small 2 bay garage and our landlord increased our rent by 50% after the first year and we were not generating the business to accommodate that increase.

Please tell us about Tony’s Automotive Service.
We are a general auto repair shop. We do all types of general repairs i.e. drive train, brakes, exhaust, suspension, HVAC, tire sales and service, oil changes and all fluid exchanges, tune up and scheduled maintenance, computer and drivability diagnostics. We service most any make and model and we stay on top of the technology we need to service our customers. If there is a job we do not do we know likeminded repair shops that specialize in those repairs so we can comfortably refer our customers out to get the quality repairs they need from an honest and ethical shop. We continue to carry on our fathers philosophy in that we treat every customer, man, woman, young and mature with the same respect, we try to educate them on their cars and show them what we replaced and why. We do not sell things that are not needed or charge for basic courtesy tasks. Our father’s tag line was “Where Customers Send Their Friends” and when he retired another local shop took that tag line but as we continue in his footsteps we are the shop “Where Customers Still Send Their Friends”

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Traveling to Animal Forest Park in Maine with my mom and my brother.

Contact Info:

• Address: Tony’s Automotive Service
  143 Main St. South Grafton MA 01560
• Website: http://tonysautomotive.wixsite.com
• Phone: 5088878669
• Email: tonysautomotive014@gmail.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/TonysAutomotiveService

Image Credit:
Charles Shultz creator of Peanuts

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