Obituary: Forest Lake tire shop owner Dick Stark, 82, created community — one cup at a time

Mary Divine, Pioneer Press
·8 min read

When you run the local coffee klatch out of your tire shop, you get to pick the coffee.

For Dick Stark, the longtime owner of Reub’s Tire Shop in downtown Forest Lake, that meant serving Folgers 100% Colombian ground coffee to the dozen or so regulars who gathered throughout the day.

“He was very finicky about it,” said his son, Russ Stark. “If anyone brought in any other kind of coffee as a gift, he would donate that coffee to a food shelf. He started with a tiny, little 8-cup coffee maker and then moved to a big stainless-steel percolator like you’d find at church. How’s it taste? You’re asking the wrong guy. I think it tastes like perfectly free coffee.”

Coffee at Reub’s was so popular that the coffee guys came in shifts. Some came by before the shop even opened — whoever came in closest to 8 a.m. was asked to flip the sign from “Closed” to “Open,” while others cycled in and out until mid-morning. Someone might bring donuts; Dick Stark’s wife Jan often sent over baked goods. Only two topics were off-limits: politics and wives/girlfriends.

Stark, who owned and operated Reub’s for more than 50 years, died Oct. 19 at M Health Fairview University of Minnesota Medical Center – West Bank in Minneapolis from complications related to lung disease. He was 82.

“His office coffee klatch was a ministry to many in Forest Lake,” one longtime customer wrote in a tribute posted on his obituary.

“He was a dedicated expert in his trade,” wrote another. “He supplied tires and service for all my work trucks, family cars and my old cars. He was a great example of how to do things right. He never cut corners and understood the safety of good tires. He was one of the last ‘old school’ service shops. Walking into his shop was like going back in time. I would joke with him that he probably put half a dozen local coffee shops out of business.”

Stark worked on all types of vehicles: cars, trucks, classic cars, tractors and semi-tractor trailers. “He was just old school — a hard worker who liked to take care of people’s tires to make sure that they’re safe on the road,” said Russ Stark, who lives in Minneapolis.

Chain tire shops “didn’t know what to do with a tractor tire,” he said. “They didn’t have the machinery or the tools to handle that — or the know-how, but commercial truckers could come in and get the tires for their 18-wheelers changed, and farmers could bring in their humongous 6-foot tractor tires.”

Dick Stark was born in Appleton, Minn. His father, Victor, died when he was 2, and his mother, Irene, moved Stark and his older and younger sister to Forest Lake when he was 10 after she answered an ad for a housekeeper who could also care for children.

As soon as Stark was old enough, he began working different jobs to “try and contribute and take care of his mom and his younger sister,” Russ Stark said.

An interest in cars led Stark to apply for a job at Reub’s when he was in high school. Reub Engler, who founded the company in 1922, hired him to work after school and during the summer.

After Stark graduated from Forest Lake High School in 1959, he took a job driving a truck for Rehbein Construction. He later served two years in the Army, serving in the 82nd Airborne Division.

In 1967, he married his high school sweetheart, Janet Rose Marier, at the Church of St. Peter in Forest Lake. The couple had dated on and off for eight years, even during his two years in the Army. “We would just always come back together and see each other again,” Jan Stark said. “I knew it was serious when my family encouraged me to invite him to Thanksgiving dinner.”

The couple had three sons: Victor, Russ and Ryan.

In 1971, Engler sold Reub’s Tire Shop/DX Gasoline to Stark and Jack Palmer; seven years later, the business partners and longtime friends stopped selling gas and concentrated on the tire business. Palmer died in 2010 at the age of 68.

Stark and Palmer never had employees at the shop. “Jack would take lunch break at 11 a.m., and Dad would take lunch break at noon, so one of them was always there,” Russ Stark said.

Dick and Jan Stark bought the house next door to Reub’s in 1972. “He saw an opportunity to purchase a home and be in business in town and have everything together right there,” Russ Stark said. “It’s a 100-foot walk from the house to the shop door. He could go home for lunch. If my mom wasn’t going to be there, she’d have a sandwich ready for him.”

Reub’s sold many brands of tires, but Goodyear was always Stark’s favorite. The shop has a large Goodyear sign on the side of the building, and Stark always wore either a blue Goodyear ball cap or a blue Goodyear stocking cap — depending on the weather.

Stacks of new tires fill the shop’s salesroom — which doubles as the meeting place for the coffee crew. The shop’s cash register dates back to 1922. Calendars of Forest Lake High School’s boys and girls sports teams line the wall next to photos of Stark’s grandkids and family. A leg lamp — just like the one from “A Christmas Story” — is in the window that faces U.S. 61. The garage area features a 25-foot ceiling, huge windows, a large garage door for bringing vehicles inside out of the winter cold, a loud air compressor, tire-changing equipment, and a computerized wheel balancer.

Maxwell Stark, a filmmaker who lives in Minneapolis, featured his grandfather in a short film in 2010.

Son Ryan Stark, who lives in Lindström, jokes that he got to go through Reub’s “apprenticeship program” one winter after his father broke his leg while sledding with friends on New Year’s Eve.

“Dad was in his late 60s at the time,” he said. “My favorite part of the program was learning Dad’s version of customer service: ‘The customer is never right and hardly knows their head from their butt, let alone what tires they need.’ ”

But no one had a bigger heart than Dick Stark, said son Vic Stark, who lives in Forest Lake.

Once, a young woman came to the shop to have a tire checked, and Stark discovered that all four of her tires had barely any tread left. He noticed car seats and toys in the back seat.

“He asked the young woman, ‘Do you drive your children around in that car?’ ” Vic Stark said. “She said, ‘Yes.’ So Dad told her that he’s not letting her leave with those tires on the car — it’s not safe. The woman said she couldn’t afford new tires. Dad said, ‘That’s OK. I’ll put new tires on, and we’ll figure out a payment plan at cost, no payment for service.’ … That kind of thing happened often.”

About a year ago, when Stark became too ill to continue working at Reub’s, he offered to rent the space to a young mechanic and Marine Corps veteran named Gerald Wesen.

“That’s so like my dad,” Russ Stark said. “I’m sure he said, ‘I’m not using the shop. You’re a mechanic. You want to start a business? You want to rent a space right now because I’m not using it.’ ”

Now, Vic Stark goes over every morning to make the coffee for the coffee crew, Russ Stark said.

“It’s still a gathering spot,” he said. “They all know each other. There is one guy who comes in with his own fancy coffee. He pulls in, and he gets so much crap from those guys. He’s got his frou-frou expensive coffee. I mean you can just hear it. These guys — they will look for the smallest thing to give some guy crap about.”

Russ Stark said his father exemplified the old adage “Slow and steady wins the race.”

“He was never in a hurry,” he said. “He just went at his pace and knew that the important thing was to put food on the table and have a home. I think that goes back to his upbringing and growing up without a father. Stability and security and food — that was the main thing. You have those things, you have everything. You have family, a place to live, and you have food, that’s all you need. And friends. That’s really it. Everything else is stretching and unnecessary, and you should be happy with what you have.”

Stark is survived by his wife, Jan, and by three sons and four grandchildren.

A Mass of Christian burial will be at 11 a.m. Wednesday at the Church of St. Peter in Forest Lake. Visitation will be one hour prior to the mass at the church; a 21-gun salute and a luncheon will immediately follow at the church. Friends also are invited for a special toast — “at Dick’s request” — at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday at the American Legion Post No. 225 in Forest Lake.

A few years ago, unbeknownst to his family, Stark started a scholarship at Forest Lake Area High School for students pursuing trade school education in automotive service or technology.

Gifts to the Dick Stark Memorial Automotive Scholarship for Forest Lake Area High School students are suggested.

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