Chester Times, Oct 24th, 1936
Chester Times, Oct 3rd, 1936
Chester Times, Feb 27th, 1937
My dad was always looking for a way to give the business a boost, he frequently adver- tised in the local newspaper to drum up business. I think we, his kids, may have made the difference. All we needed was food to work, and since we were at the peak of health with great, big, friendly smiles, we earned our customers with true grit and a welcome greet- ing. Absolutely nothing was handed to us. Whatever we did, it must have worked because a couple of years after getting the station, Pop was able to get another one. The next one was located on the corner at the opposite end of the same block, 9th and Flower Street, otherwise known as Route 322. The reason he purchased this one was to pick up the east-west traffic. Flower Street was the main road through Chester that terminated a few blocks to the east at the Chester-Bridge- port Ferry our keyt source of business. Now Pop had two gas stations on the same block serving all points of the compass, and an empty lot that stood in-between. Eventu- ally, he bought that empty lot, too.
Things were changing, and fuel was becoming standardized. Gasoline retailing began offering a single brand at each station. Customers tended to stick with the brand they trusted. Choosing a brand, or more precisely, being allowed to sell a particular brand, was critical to our business. The best my dad could secure was Amoco for one station and ESSO for the other. Meanwhile, across the street, our competitor had the top brand, at the time, Atlantic. There was always a gas price war waged between all the stations on 9th Street. Who would sell the cheapest? One thing we could do to differentiate ourselves was to treat customers like kings. With perseverance and hard work, a couple of years later, we earned the Atlantic brand, and business picked up. When Pop purchased the empty block between the two stations, he added a little ice house so customers could keep their food fresh. It was only big enough to store four or five large blocks of ice. We used ice picks to chip off a 10 cent or 15 cent piece. Along the other side of the lot, Pop put a servicing pit for greasing cars and changing oil. We did everything we could to leverage our small business. I would climb down a clumsy ladder to get under a car so I could put grease in the bearings or change the oil. As you can imagine, by the end of the day all of our cloth- ing would be full of grease. We would take them home, and mother would wash them by hand.
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Shooster’s Gas Station Marketing Phone number 2-9386
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