By Craig Westcott/August 5, 2022
HEAD: In it for the long run
DECK: John Gibbons has seen a lot of change in the convenience store business during his five decades of operation in St. Mary’s
Though he is turning 75 this fall and already has five decades behind him in the convenience store, hardware and dry goods business, John Gibbons of St. Mary’s is still intimately involved in the life of the community and bullish on its future.
Gibbons is proud to say the business, which dates back to the 1880s, is still successful. And while rural Newfoundland has taken a battering the past few decades due to depopulation, Gibbons points out more homes in the area are being bought by people moving back to their roots and by newcomers seeking a quieter lifestyle.
Gibbons is also happy to see the ownership of the local crab plant, which had lain idle, change hands this past spring with hopes of seeing more work there in the coming years.
“The revitalization of the fish plant brings hope to St. Mary’s and surrounding communities,” said Gibbons.
Then there’s the ongoing reconstruction of the 17th century St. Mary’s Battery, the development of the Gulch Beach Walking Trail, “which in time will connect the point La Haye Lighthouse Trail along the shoreline to the St. Mary’s Battery,” Gibbons pointed out, and the development of the First Falls Walking Trail. Even the roads have been fixed up in places, he added.
All in all, things are looking more positive for St. Mary’s than say a decade ago. And that excites Gibbons, who this month will be participating in his favourite summertime ritual, the Gulch Beach car show.
Though he’s had a successful career behind the counter, Gibbons didn’t plan on getting in the convenience store business.
His move to the store came about because of a crisis in the family. It was August of 1972 and his father George, who had been operating a store for much of his life, as had his father and grandfather before him, had to go to hospital for a hernia operation. But as the surgeon began his work, it became obvious George had cancer. The senior Gibbons died on the 29th of August. He had just turned 65.
For John, it not only meant the loss of his father, but also a sudden increase in responsibility. John had been working for his brother Don, a well-known and colourful entrepreneur in the region, who passed away eight years ago. Their mom Josephine, a much respected and long serving district nurse, who eventually ended up with the Order of Canada, encouraged John to take over the store.
The business wasn’t completely foreign to him. As a youth, John had stocked shelves from time to time and performed other work, but hardly ever served behind the counter. A bout of measles when he was 14 had damaged John’s ear drums, stealing 90 per cent of his hearing. So, he had never been obligated to do counter work. Now he would have to handle everything.
“It was a pretty steep learning curve,” Gibbons admitted, looking back on the experience.
But running a shop was in the genes. John’s great-grandfather, Stephen Gibbons opened a store in St. Vincent’s in the 1880s, eventually moving it to St. Mary’s in the early 1900s. John’s grandfather, also named Stephen, operated a business in St. Mary’s on the harbour beach.
“He had his own wharf and his own schooners,” said John. “It was a big operation, a two-storey structure and they carried everything from a needle to an anchor.”
When Stephen Gibbons died in 1947, John’s father George took over. He moved the store to what was then considered the main road, known as the Lower Road, next to the Church. It was to that building that John turned when he took on the business in 1972. A year later, he too moved the operation, this time to its current site on the main highway.
“I was losing out on a lot of passing trade,” John said. “People wouldn’t leave the main road and go down to the Lower Road anymore, so my brother Don suggested we move to the main road.”
Gibbons has seen a lot of change in business, and in St. Mary’s over the years. Business now is a far cry from the heydays of the 1970s and ‘80s when the cod fishery kept about 300 people employed steadily at the plant and the store’s staff on the hop supplying groceries, beer and cigarettes. The store used to sell about 150 cartons of cigarettes a week, not counting tinned and tub tobacco. Paydays at the plant were something else.
“You couldn’t imagine it, it was nonstop,” said Gibbons. “I often went to St. John’s on a Friday morning to the Water Street West branch of the Royal Bank to get $60,000, shove it into the top pocket of my coat and walk out.”
The money was needed to cash the cheques of the plant workers.
When the moratorium hit in 1992, it went from good to bad overnight. Many families left town, going mainly out west to work. Gibbons added plumbing and other hardware lines to the store in a bid to reclaim some of the lost revenues.
Gibbons knows the future of convenience stores such as his are facing a challenging future. But they are still needed.
Other challenges have affected the business, and his family, from time to time too. Most recently, John was rocked by the loss of his grandson Liam, who died in an accident.
But Gibbons isn’t the type to complain. His even keel personality sees him through. Like the time his house caught on fire on the night of May 12, 2000. It was caused by a lightning strike that split a transformer in half and damaged a number of other houses in the area too. Fortunately nobody was hurt. The store was also damaged.
“I came up to the store the next morning to use the phone and the phone was gone, burnt up,” Gibbons said. “The computer was burnt up, the fax machine was burnt up, all the lines that were plugged in were burned to pieces. A couple of coolers burned out.”
Gibbons even lost the previous day’s credit card and debit transactions because they had not been processed before the lighting hit. It took about three days to get back in business.
While a number of other stores have come and gone in St. Mary’s over the years, Gibbons’ store has always managed to survive. What is the key to surviving so long?
“I work eight days a week,” Gibbons said, laughing. “I usually come in around 7:30 or quarter to eight in the morning and work until nine at night with an hour lunch break and supper break. That’s except for the days when I have to go to pick up supplies… When you’re in business you’ve got to be there 99.9 per cent of the time yourself.”
In some ways the grocery business has gotten easier, he said, thanks to the new technology - computers and scanners and what not - but that equipment is costly and you have to find people who are comfortable using the technology to work for you. Gibbons said he has been fortunate to have had good people working with him, including the late Patricia Grace, who worked 43 years in the store. She passed away in December. All told, a couple of full-time workers and a half dozen or so part timers are employed. Gibbons manages a scattered vacation, usually in the winter and most likely to visit his brother Seamus in Corner Brook.
The store has suffered only a couple of minor robberies during his five decades on the job.
Other keys to success in business?
“You need a good personality,” Gibbons allowed. “And you have to be trustworthy and loyal and keep your customer’s business private.”
Some 50 years later, Gibbons is glad he agreed to take on the business. He said he has managed to make a good living and is thankful for the support of his wife Bernadette and their three children. Though he will turn 75 this fall, there is no word yet on retirement.
“What would I do?” he asked, smiling. “I like coming to work everyday.”
