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Mike Allen

Mike Allen

Third-generation auto repair shop owner (CarFix, Garner NC) and host of the Confessions of a Shop Owner podcast.

Oct 3, 2026

10:03
That's right.
10:04
Yeah.
10:04
So third generation family business.
10:06
My, my grandfather opened a general store, feed lot, community center, everything in 1937, um, when he was 18 years old, and at the time it was the shop and the grocery store and one bedroom attached to the back of it, and then eventually he got married and they, and he built a living room and a kitchen onto it also, and that's where my dad grew up.
10:31
And he actually, his bedroom growing up was above the grocery store floor, and so to get up in the morning, 'cause the farmers were in there at 5:00 a.m. having coffee and talking shit, right?
11:24
Wow.
11:24
Um, and so, uh, my dad grew up in it and hated it and, uh, left and went away to college and, uh, dropped out of college because he got married and had a baby and needed to work, and he went to work for a shop in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and eventually became a manager at that.
11:46
Uh, it was a-- By the time he became a manager, there were four shops in that group, and eventually bought out one of those shops, and that's the shop that I grew up in.

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