At first glance, it seems like business as usual at The Rayvic Co., 1501 East Hennepin Ave., as another work-week begins in mid-May. Mechanics are working on a half-dozen cars parked on or hoisted above the service-area floors on either side of the cluttered reception office, where customers call on the phone or in person to inquire about their autos. Owner Steve Grothjan fields the calls, like his father Victor did before him, heading up the daily operations of the service station that his family has run for 62 years of its 76-year history.

But upon further inspection, one notices the uniform grey tags that are everywhere, assigning numbers to anything that isn’t not bolted down — and plenty of things that are. In the service area behind Rayvic’s signature facade, the floor is strewn with the stuff of more than seven decades of business and automotive history: old typewriters, cash registers, fire extinguishers, radiators, advertisement displays, signs made of cardboard, metal and neon.

There are rusted headlights and hoods, a calendar from 1950, boxes of thermostats for Buicks and Chevys of that era, shotgun shells next to duck decoys hoses, ancient oil cans, and blue plastic letters that once spelled the word “MOBILE.” In the garage out back is the grandest item: a black 1948 Chevy that belonged to Steve’s father Vic Grothjan.

All of it is being auctioned online this week, in anticipation of Rayvic’s last day of business on Friday, May 23. “Everything’s got to go,” said Steve — from the modern equipment (car lifts, gas pumps, vans, trucks, even the pop machine) to a bright red gas pump from 1936, the year his father started working at was then Ed McNamara’s service station. A sign marking “Vic’s first tire repair” — from January 16 of that year — hangs on a wall next to an old wheel and tire that “still holds air.” It’s number 864.

Changes in the automotive repair business, rising gas costs, and necessary upgrades to fuel tanks, lines and pumps — estimated in the $300,000–$400,000 range — have forced the Southeast Como institution to shut down, said Steve.

He wrote a letter earlier this spring, thanking his customers and looking “forward to a happy and healthy future for us all.”

On his last Monday of business, however, Steve admitted that it’s “difficult to separate the emotions from being a practical businessperson.

“It’s a horrible thing to have to face,” he said, sitting beside his wife Jan.

While the family, customers and neighbors alike will dearly miss Rayvic, there is hope that the spirit of the place will live on. Local developer Andrew Volna, who owns the adjacent lot and other Southeast Como property, has purchased the site, which will house a single tenant — web marketing and design firm Clockwork Active Media Systems. Volna said work should begin in June on the renovation of their offices, which will “maintain the character of a vintage service station, with an exciting twist,” he said.

The end of an era

The name “Rayvic” comes from the names of Vic Grothjan and Ray Poqette, Steve explained — a pair of employees who bought the business from Ed McNamara in 1946, after the two returned from service in WWII.

The station was smaller then, just a third of its current size, occupying the northwest corner of Southeast 15th and East Hennepin avenues. Vic and Ray added on in the late 1940s — the current reception office and service area beyond the Hennepin-facing façade — and more service garages were added in 1998, said Steve.

As the building evolved, so did the business. New faces came on board, some with a familiar name. “This has always been a family-owned business,” said Steve, who started working for his father in 1968, while in high school. (Longtime customer and Como resident Joan Menken said she remembers him “tooling around the place” even earlier as a little boy.)

Steve’s sister, Rayvic’s office manager, has worked there for 25 years. His wife Jan came on full-time 12 years ago, and their son Joseph earned an auto degree from Dunwoody before joining the team.

Menken, who has lived a couple blocks away since 1964, noted some things that didn’t change, from the ubiquitous garage dog (the last one, Slick, passed away soon after Steve’s father, in 1996) to the excellent service and commitment to the neighborhood. “If you [have] a car problem, go to Rayvic,” neighbors told her when she first moved in.

“For community people that know these places, it’s very sad,” she said of the closing. “It’s so historic, and they had done such a wonderful job serving the community for so long.”

Menken said Grothjan called her personally to say he would be closing, and that his first priority was finding work for his employees. Grothjan acknowledged the concern; he called around to other local auto repair shops, hoping to direct both customers and employees there. They all wanted the business, he said, and some have tentatively offered jobs to his mechanics.

“That’s just noble,” said Menken of Grothjan’s commitment to his employees. “Not only ethical, but it shows you how much he cares about the people that work for him.”

Keeping up the façade

In the later years of the business, the Grothjans also made an effort to preserve Rayvic’s history, primarily by restoring the building’s facade in a nod to earlier days. The company was one of the first to receive a small business grant from the Southeast Como Improvement Association (SECIA), said James De Sota, executive director of SECIA. The external work included painting the East Hennepin-facing side of the building with the now-iconic red Pegasuses and lettering.

Connie Sullivan, another longtime customer and Southeast Como resident, lauded both the October 2003 restoration and the Grothjan’s concern that the site be sold to someone who would similarly preserve the past.

“He considered who might be a better fit for that corner,” said Sullivan, who worked with the SECIA history committee in 2006 to produce a calendar that featured Rayvic and three other Como businesses. “He did not sell it to a great big company like Holiday [gas station.] That’s all we would have needed, a Holiday right there.”

Instead, the building will hold another local small business, Clockwork, which will move only a two blocks from its current location in the Hawkinson building (also owned by Volna) at 1325 Winter Street NE.

One reason Rayvic felt right selling to Volna, said Jan, was that the new tenants wanted to keep the building’s automotive theme. Clockwork will work with Shea Architects to create what the interactive firm’s President Nancy Lyons called “a little miracle on the corner.” Clockwork wants to preserve the history of the place and will preserve the famous facade, she said. “When we first walked through, we said, ‘Let’s just keep it! Just put my desk on one of the hydraulic lifts!’” she joked at the time. In an added nod to Rayvic, Clockwork will give away free air outside the building to those who need to fill their tires.

The 30-employee company was looking to expand, and the Rayvic opportunity “seemed like a no-brainer,” said Lyons, who said the 10,000-square-foot building will leave room for Clockwork to expand.

Lyons cited the building’s charm and history. “We love the idea of old meets new technology,” she said. “We’re in service business, too, and there are basic tenets we share with the work [Rayvic’s] has done. We see ourselves as accessible, grounded — creative engineers who love the work we do. The space resonated with us and our culture.”

Volna said that work will begin June 1, when they’ll start pulling the underground tanks. After that, the soil will be tested, and they’ll “do whatever remediation is necessary, under the watchful eye of MPCA.” Since the tanks were replaced in the past twenty years, Volna is “fairly confident there will be very little remediation,” he said.

Volna estimated a summer move-in for Clockwork; Lyons was a bit more conservative, guessing early fall.

However successful the preservation attempts are, the old Rayvic will be gone by then. The memorabilia will be sold, except for a few choice items — like the neon Pegasus sign that hangs inside — that family members will keep. The many years of service will be a memory that generations of employees and customers alike are not likely to forget any time soon.

“We’re going to miss him terribly,” said Menken. “We wish them well; they’ve done a wonderful job. You understand things change, but it’s hard to let go of something that has served the neighborhood so well for so long.”

If you would like to take some Rayvic’s memorabilia home with you, check out the online auction at www.k-bid.com, and/or visit the station tomorrow, Wednesday, May 21, for the open house viewing, 9 a.m.–4 p.m.

Photo included, with this caption: The Rayvic crew (most of them, anyway) outside their East Hennepin Avenue business. From left to right: Joe Grothjan, Chao Vang, Joe Keenan, Mike Jensen, Jan Grothjan, Steve Grothjan, Laura Hengen, Ann Barry, Christian Lara