CONTRIBUTED CONTENT — A young Southern Utah couple has rolled open the bay doors on an automotive care center in St. George with a mission to provide a new level of service that customers can rely on for years to come.
For new owners Kaden and Alexis Stuart, it’s all about family at K + A Auto Care. The couple has been planning and saving for a long time, and their dream of running a business has finally come true.
“It was quite the endeavor,” Kaden Stuart told St. George News. “A little stressful, but that was expected.”
Stuart said he loves turning a wrench and has been tooling around with cars ever since he was a little kid. After high school graduation, he went to school for a while to try out other things, but everything kept pulling him back to being a mechanic. The 26-year-old entrepreneur said that after finally accepting that he couldn’t avoid it any longer, he decided if he was going to do it right, he had to open his own shop.
This opportunity presented itself a few months ago. While still living in northern Utah, the couple heard about a building opening up in St. George with over 10,000 square feet of space that would be a perfect fit for their dream. It needed a lot of work, Stuart said, and they’ve been doing everything from electrical to concrete to get it ready.
Now they have a welcoming and friendly lobby with plenty of room for customers to relax, two shops with five lifting bays for repairs, racks of tools and diagnostic equipment and a playroom for their 8-month-old, Jordan, and other little tykes to enjoy while parents are waiting.
“It’s been a crazy trip getting to this point,” Stuart said.
Kaden’s father, Collins, told St. George News he thinks that his son’s entrepreneurial spirit might have rubbed off a little from his old man. Collins Stuart was beaming with pride while holding his grandson at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the center Thursday afternoon.
“He has really gone out on a limb to pursue a dream and pursue a passion,” Collins said, adding that as the founder of Outdoor Living and The Awning Company and a business owner in St. George for 26 years, he understands how much dedication it takes to operate a company.
“I am sure that growing up around me and having being exposed to a business owner/entrepreneur type experience led him to feel like that was something he could do and accomplish and be successful at.”
Everything from bumper to bumper can be repaired at K + A Auto Care. With the exception of commercial vehicles, they can handle anything from a Ford 350 pickup truck to a Toyota Corolla. Their mechanics have 25 years of combined experience and offer a wide variety of Southern Utah vehicle services and repairs, including engine repair, heating and air conditioning repairs, electronic testing and full vehicle inspections to gauge a car’s overall health.
When customers bring a car in, even for an oil change, they receive a detailed report of the car with digital photographs, Kaden Stuart said, so instead the mechanic just telling you what might break on your vehicle, they provide an extremely detailed breakdown of what issues it could have before they become a problem. A full digital history is then kept on file as a reminder to help people care for their investments.
“All you need to do is maintain your vehicles properly, and they’ll run forever,” he said, noting that he has a string of cars on his lot that have traveled over 200,000 miles, and he would trust any of them. “Preventative maintenance is so much cheaper than it is to have a car payment.”
Collins Stuart said the new shop was “one of those American dreams,” and added that his son wants to deliver more than any of the shops in the area, offering the best value and service above what anyone expects.
The Stuarts invite the entire community to join them for a grand opening celebration Saturday to meet the entire family, take a tour of the facility and find out exactly what “Trusted Repair Service” means to the new owners. The party kicks off at 11 a.m. with free pizza, a bounce house for the kids, prizes and many grand opening specials.
Kaden Stuart’s younger brother Nayland, who is also following his dream as the new owner of VUDUU pizza, will be at the celebration rolling out handmade, wood-fired pizza cooked fresh until 2 p.m.
At just 23 years old, Nayland Stuart spent a few years after high school figuring out his life plan, his dad said. He enjoyed making pizzas and the restaurant business but didn’t know exactly what he loved to do. A few months ago, when a friend asked him if he’d be interested in being the manager of VUDUU pizza at their new location on St. George Boulevard, he jumped at the chance.
Within two months, Nayland had found his passion, bought out his friend and set out to pursue the business on his own terms.
“My boys have seen what it’s taken for me to have businesses,” Collins Stuart said. “They’ve seen the hours that I put in, the effort and the stress and the money that’s involved in opening a company, and they’re both willing to put in that time and effort to make sure that the company is successful. One of them, it’s been planned for a few years and the other…it just kind of materialized. To have them both happening at the same time is crazy.”
Kaden Stuart said even though they’ve been planning for their family’s big reveal for a while, it didn’t all start coming together until last week. He hopes everyone will come out Saturday, have a slice of hot pizza and find out what the Stuarts are all about.
K + A Auto Care is located at 296 N. Industrial Road. Their normal operating hours are Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
For more information or to schedule and appointment today call 435-218-7278 or email at [email protected].
Written by ANDREW PINCKNEY, St. George News.
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