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The Times They Are A-Changin'

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BY CHERYL BENTLEY

THE SUNCOAST NEWS

Published: July 16, 2008

Even if New Port Richey's Main Street is no longer the commercial center it once was, even if mom and pop stores have given way to chains, even if that down-home atmosphere has quickened to the fast pace of the exurbs, John Herig and his Cathedral Automotive is still on Main Street.

But now as if to make it official that the New Port Richey of old no longer exists except in memories, the 65-year-old Herig, who owns what was once the busiest gas station in town, is awaiting someone to purchase his property.

Herig is ready to retire.

His shop at the corner of Main Street and Grand Boulevard has been for sale for about a year. "There have been a few nibbles but no big offers" is the way Herig explained the situation thus far.

He expects the future owner to tear down the garage and erect a building more appropriate for another type of business.

Although the Mystik gas sign still hangs out front, Herig stopped selling gas a year ago. He has kept the auto repair part of his business open and said he does well in that area. But as an independent gas distributor, he could not make a profit unless he sold gas about 15 cents a gallon more than the chains.

"It was costing me money to keep it up," he said.

It didn't use to be like that, Herig recalled, sitting in his fan-cooled little office with a cabinet of chipped paint and a shelf of ancient oil cans.

Business was booming when in 1977, he and Hank Sieger bought the gas station business, then called Circle Service, from Helen and Lee Coast and gave it the Cathedral name in honor of Sieger's business in Long Island, N.Y. The Coasts had owned it since 1949, when there was no U.S. 19. Grand Boulevard was then called Dixie Highway and was the main drag, Herig explained.

He thinks there was a business there since the 1930s, but he doesn't know what it was.

By the time Herig and fellow New Yorker Sieger bought it, U.S.19 had been built, and Main Street was the center of New Port Richey life with a supermarket and drug and hardware stores.

"Business was booming," he said. "It was 70 percent better than now."

They had about 50 business accounts then from the small businesses in the area.

"That stuff is all gone now," he said.

He bought out Sieger in 1984, when his partner retired.

By that time, Gulf View Square, the mall, had been built north of Port Richey and had begun luring business from Main Street. The streetscaping project on Main Street in the 1990s, which was supposed to help bring people back downtown created more hardships, Herig remembered. Many of his customers went elsewhere to avoid the chaos during construction and never came back.

When self-service gasoline retailing was born, it sounded the death knell for the neighborhood station.

"You lost the loyalty of customers coming to you for everything," Herig said. "A lot of them would look for the lowest price of gas."

Though they were a boon to the pocketbook, the new stations also signified a more impersonal world. In the old way of doing business, everyone was on a first-name basis, Herig recalled. "If somebody didn't have money, you could trust them till the next week."

Much of the personal feeling still remains. On a recent morning, Herig knew all of his customers by name. Many appeared to linger for a chat.

Herig wants to travel when his business is sold - he has never been to Hawaii or Alaska, he said - but he is going to miss the part of his life that has taken up three decades.

"I get up every day, and even to this day, I like it."

Cheryl Bentley can be reached at 727-815-1069 or cbentley@suncoastnews.com.

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