'I don't want to leave': Why Howell mechanic is closing shop after 30 years

HOWELL - For 30 years, Bobby Vaccaro has owned R&J Auto Repair on Route 9, a family operation that has survived multiple economic recessions and a global pandemic off positive word of mouth and being a part of the community.

But in June, Vaccaro is retiring.

"You fix somebody's car, then you fix their brother's, you fix the neighbor's, the neighbor's father, it just grew. I really started here with nothing when I came in," Vaccaro said. "I don't want to leave. It is going to be the hardest thing to lock that door."

Thirty years of wear and tear adds up.

"I find myself lately sitting in the back of the shop, thinking of all that went on," Vaccaro said. "I really don't want to leave, but physically I can't do it anymore. Sooner or later it's got to end. I didn't want it to end this way, I thought my son would (be here)."

His son, Michael Vaccaro, graduated high school in 2005 and spent years working with his father in Howell until he passed away in 2017 at the age of 30 after a long struggle with addiction.

"He was a good kid. … (Addiction) just took over, but this (shop) was supposed to be his. If he was around, I would've probably retired three years ago," Vaccaro said. "I never pushed him to do (mechanics). He was just like me, it just came natural."

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'Everyone found out I fixed cars'

Vaccaro, 69, was born in Brooklyn in 1955. He attended high school in Staten Island when he transferred to vocational school.

"It was a little bit of everything; woodshop, electrical plumbing and the last quarter of the freshman year was automotive. That is what I decided to take the next three years," Vaccaro said.

Like so many aspiring mechanics, his first job was pumping gas through his early teens and every now and then he would get the chance to go into the garage and work a little bit with the mechanics.

"I've had jobs over the years," Vaccaro said. "I was HVAC engineer in 1 New York Plaza, the 50-story building. After a few months, everyone found out I fixed cars. I would take the radio, go into the garage and work on everybody's cars. No matter what I did, it was always back to working on cars," Vaccaro said.

The first shop Vaccaro opened was in April 1984 in Staten Island, a couple blocks from the shop that first hired him as a mechanic 10 years prior.

"Around 1989 I got the bug to get out of Staten Island. I couldn't deal with it anymore," Vaccaro said. "It took like five years to convince my wife to move to Jersey."

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R&J Auto Repair has operated about a mile into the township from neighboring Lakewood since 1994. The name R&J stands for Robert and Joanne, his wife.

"That was my father-in-law's idea, that it had to be personal," Vaccaro said.

For about a year, Vaccaro operated both shops.

"This place (in Howell) was doing so good, and that place (in Staten Island) was falling apart," he said. "We decided to close that place a year after."

'We made a good team'

His daughter, Lisa Craven, 30, was born the year prior to R&J opening, so she does not know a life without the shop and admittedly does not remember exactly when she started working there. She believes she started working at the shop in 2011 after she graduated high school but both she and her father jokingly admit "we don't know who hired her."

"I was floating for a little, in and out. I was young I didn't really want to work. In the summers I would leave and go to the beach and hang out," Craven said. "Then I started taking it more seriously and I fell in love with being here. I was with my dad, I was with my brother."

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Now that the shop is definitely closing, she said "it's hard" because "it was never work to me."

"I love this place, I love my customers, I love working with him. I wish I could do it. I thought about it," Craven said. "I thought I could do it, but I want to keep having children and focus on my family. I have one daughter. I want to continue to grow my family."

Craven was responsible for all the administrative duties, so while her dad focused on the cars, she would worry about everything else. "We made a good team," she said.

Vaccaro joked about how popular his daughter is with customers. "Nobody comes here anymore to see me," he said.

He originally planned to call it quits in October, but his daughter moved it up to June. "She said, 'Enjoy the summer,'" he recalled.

"So we could drop dead here in 95 to 100 degrees?" Craven said in explaining why they're closing before the hot months start. "It is not worth it."

In over a decade, Craven said there was maybe four people in total that had their businesses refused.

"That is why I loved coming here, because everybody was so happy to come here," she said. "When I first started working here, I remember there were invoices that people owed us, thousands of dollars, because people would come here, and it was hard times. Now it is even harder … but we always understood life."

Vaccaro has gone weeks without getting paid despite owning a successful business for three decades. He said the COVID-19 pandemic was harder than the two economic recessions. The landlord told him "pay me what you could, if you can't pay me no big deal."

"That is what carried us through the pandemic," Vaccaro said. "That was the hardest time."

Charles Daye is the metro reporter for Asbury Park and Neptune, with a focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. @CharlesDayeAPP Contact him: CDaye@gannettnj.com

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: R&J Auto Repair in Howell: Mechanic shutting down after 30 years