Dennis Dunbar completes an oil change for a customer on Tuesday, September 21, 2021 at Scotch Cap Auto in Quaker Hill. He is the third generation of his family to run the small car repair shop on Old Norwich Road, and will be the last when he retires at the end of the month. (Sean D. Elliot/The Day)
Waterford – A welcoming white building at 73 Old Norwich Road was the location of Scotch Cap Service Station, a neighborhood car repair shop, where a Dunbar has worked under the bonnet for around 80 years.
Dennis “Denny” Dunbar said he put a sign on the storefront when he took over in 1979, but the business has operated without a large sign since it stopped serving as a gas station at the late 1990s.
Sign or not, his customers know where to find him and most of his new business has come by word of mouth.
Now, however, there is another sign on the window.
“To our valued and loyal customers, Scotch Cap Service will be closing its repair business on September 30,” it says. “We have deeply appreciated your patronage and loyalty throughout the nearly 80 years my family has been here at this place.”
Dunbar, the third generation of family mechanics to operate the business, is closing the workshop his grandfather, Harold Dunbar, bought in the early 1940s after working for the first owner. The shop is family owned and has been a cornerstone of the Quaker Hill community ever since. His grandfather passed it on to his father, Kenneth Dunbar, who passed it on to him.
Dunbar said some customers have been coming to the store longer than they have been there, adding that some regulars will stop by just to chat.
After working at Scotch Cap for nearly 40 years, Dunbar, 62, said he was retiring. His two daughters didn’t want to operate the shop, nor did his loyal assistant mechanic of the past 20 years, Patrick “Ricky” Rowe.
Rowe grew up in the house next door to the store and was 18 when he started working with Dunbar. He said he spent 20 years working with his best friend Denny and treasures the wisdom, guidance and love he received from the Dunbar family the most.
But, unable to keep up with the technology involved in cars these days, Rowe said he was ready to try something new.
With no one to pass the business on to, Dunbar opted to shut it down and put it on the market.
“I had a great time,” he said. “I wouldn’t have done it this long if I hadn’t.”
So far, the building has had only one bid, Dunbar said, and it’s unclear whether it will remain as an auto repair shop. He said for the good of the neighborhood he hopes so, but it will depend on who buys it.
The building looks like a house, and at one point it was literally Dunbar’s house. Dunbar said his entire family lived upstairs before moving into houses on Dunbar Road, the street that bears the family’s name.
Although Dunbar said he was grateful for the company, which helped his daughters go to college, he is ready for a change of pace.
“I’m happy to have finally reached a point where I can retire,” he said. “Time to slow down.”
Some of Dunbar’s regular customers aren’t as happy with the closure.
Steve Kenn and his partner Kim McCaig were at the store on Monday, not over a car problem but to “scream” at Dunbar for driving off, as McCaig put it. Kenn said he went to school with Dunbar and had been coming to the store for a long time.
“He will be missed,” McCaig said.
She said Dunbar was trustworthy, having been there for big moments in McCaig’s family life, like the time Dunbar checked his daughter’s car before moving to Las Vegas.
Bryan Sayles, who has been a customer for 11 years living in Quaker Hill, described Dunbar and Rowe as “down to earth, fair with prices and honest”, qualities he says are hard to come by.
Sayles said Dunbar and Scotch Cap are a “dying breed” of friendly little neighborhood auto shops, noting that things are now “very corporate and impersonal”.
Dunbar said he works hard to keep the business small and to get to know his customers.
“For a customer,” he says, “it’s nice to know who’s working on their car.”
Dennis Dunbar completes an oil change for a customer on Tuesday, September 21, 2021 at Scotch Cap Auto in Quaker Hill. He is the third generation of his family to run the small car repair shop on Old Norwich Road, and will be the last when he retires at the end of the month. (Sean D. Elliot/The Day)
