Bob Davis Auto Repair gearing up for big changes
Popular Lake Worth Beach garage hopes to break ground on new building next year
After 25 years, Bob Davis Auto Repair is rolling out big plans for its tiny garage on the north end of Lake Worth Beach.
The popular repair shop at 1801 N. Dixie Highway is preparing to launch a $1.5 million expansion that will more than triple the size of the one-story building where Davis, his son Vinny and their crew have been turning wrenches since 2002.
The Davises envision a two-story building of nearly 5,000 square feet, with eight auto bays, a catwalk and lobby, designed by LDG Florida Architects in Lake Worth Beach. A site plan will be submitted to the Lake Worth Beach building department in January.
Click on the image below for a tour of the expanded building:
Owner Vinny Davis also hopes to get a conditional use zoning approval to allow transmission work, engine overhauls and other major automotive repairs in the new building.
Since 2002, the roughly 1,400-square-foot shop with three bays has handled general maintenance such as oil changes, engine tune-ups, tire rotations, and air-conditioning repairs.
Business has been brisk for most of the past 20 years, thanks to steady word-of-mouth referrals from satisfied customers. Now, the old shop is in need of a lot more elbow room.
“We average 17 cars a day, which is pretty insane for a small shop,’’ said Bob Davis, who opened his business in 2002 and turned it over to his son Vinny a few years ago.
If the site plans and zoning are approved, construction would start in late 2026. The new building would open by early 2028.
“It will be a great addition to the area,’’ said Dany Gutierrez, LDG’s principal and owner, noting the recent construction of the Deco Green apartment building just south of Bob Davis Auto Repair.
The finished project will include new landscaping and a building footprint set further back from Dixie Highway and 18th Avenue North. That corner will feature the main entrance with a lobby that might include an educational component such as an antique car.
Now, customers are greeted in the shop’s short driveway on 18th Avenue North, outside the first bay. Vinny handles paperwork in a cramped space with a cash register and computer. Next to that is an even smaller room with a toilet and sink.
“It needs to happen,’’ Vinny said of the expansion.
The new garage will mark the next chapter in a family legacy that started in 1979.
That’s when Bob Davis, a young mechanic in Beltsville, Maryland, piled his wife and two young sons into a Kingswood station wagon and headed south to West Palm Beach to be closer to his in-laws. Vinny was less than a year old. The station wagon towed Bob’s ‘45 Chevy truck, with his ‘46 Harley Davidson motorcycle in the bed.
Not long after arriving in the Sunshine State, Bob Davis started turning wrenches at a KMart auto shop in Boynton Beach. He eventually moved on to Nissan and Hyundai dealerships but soon found himself questioning whether the repairs they were having him make were necessary.
He decided to set out on his own.
“I did it because I loved it,’’ he said, “but I can’t cheat people. That’s not how I was raised.’’
With a partner, he opened Japanese Auto Repair Specialists in Palm Springs. He moved a few times before settling at a shop at 10th Avenue North and Military Trail.
But he grew tired of leasing someone else’s space and decided it was time to buy his own spot.
In 2002, he came across a Palm Beach Post classified ad: Doug’s Auto Repair, at 1801 N. Dixie Highway in Lake Worth, was for sale.
“I stopped in and talked to Doug and the deal was made,’’ he said.
With a Small Business Administration loan, he bought Doug Fuller’s building and land for $150,000.
“I painted over ‘Doug’ and put ‘Bob.’ I kept the apostrophe,’’ he said with a laugh. “It worked like a charm for quite a while.’’
A year or so later, he added his surname: Bob Davis Auto Repair. In 2006, he hired a third employee — his son, Vinny, who’d earned a business degree at Limestone University in South Carolina.
Vinny, a left-handed center fielder who attended Limestone on a baseball scholarship, dreamed of one day playing in the major leagues. But when his father underwent a double hernia operation in 2006, he put his energies into the repair shop.
New customers kept coming. The Davises hired more workers and bought a sliver of land to expand their corner lot to .52 acres.
“Vinny tripled the business,’’ said Bob, who retired a few years ago but remains involved with the shop.
“I treat everyone like they’re my grandmother or neighbor.’’ Vinny said. “I’m in the trenches with the everyday people – from wealthy retirees in Palm Beach and Manalapan and my paycheck-to-paycheck clients.’’
Away from the shop, Vinny relaxes with his wife Dawn and their kids Nolan, Harper and Beckett. Though his playing days are over, he has stayed involved in baseball, coaching his son’s Little League team and amassing an impressive baseball card collection with his dad. (Among his many cardboard treasures: a 1934 Lou Gehrig.)
Bob said he has always appreciated the shop’s loyal customers, many of them snowbirds who only allow Bob Davis Auto Repair to work on their cars.
“My customers have been following me around for years,” he said. “It’s like once you have a good doctor or a dentist, you stay with them.”
Over the years, Bob and Vinny forged friendships with customers, “almost like family,’’ Bob said. Many treated the Davises over the holidays with baked goods, gift cards, even tickets to Marlins baseball games and events at the Norton Museum of Art.
The shop hosts an annual cookout and car show. And it has won first place in Palm Beach Post readership contests.
“I’ve been blessed with having a clientele of super people,’’ Bob said. “I’ve barely had to do any advertising.’’
But in recent years, their busy garage with four full-time workers has been crying out for a bigger home.
Bob and Vinny looked at places on Lake Worth and Hypoluxo roads before deciding to stay put and expand at the site their customers know.
The expansion will require a tear down and rebuild. Vinny said he plans to find a temporary location, hopefully within a block or two, where Bob Davis Auto Repair can continue fixing cars while the new home is under construction.
“Every customer has a relative or friend or neighbor that they send here,’’ Vinny said. “That’s what has led to the expansion. We are ready to move up.’’
The only place we take our cars! Refer anyone who asks if we have a good, HONEST, mechanic to Bob Davis and Vinny. Ironically I just discovered reading this article that we live in a house once owned by Doug Fuller!