It doesn’t seem like that long ago when buying a set of tires for the family sedan meant choosing between a set of bias-ply tires or recaps ‒ both requiring inner tubes ‒ and if you wanted whitewalls. Bill Rider remembers those days, although when he was starting out in the tire industry, tubeless tires had mostly replaced inner tubes and steel-belted tires were just coming into fashion.
Those changes and more have advanced the industry, and Rider ‒ who used to walk to McKinley Elementary and the original Kenilworth Junior High from his eastside neighborhood ‒ has seen them all.
At Petaluma High (class of ’74), he enrolled in Outside Work Experience which allowed him to leave school at noon to go to work at Jay & Bill’s Tire Shop, co-owned by his father, Billy Ray Rider and Jay Hobbs. Remarkably, he remained at the tire shop, which is now celebrating its 50-year anniversary, his entire career.
He and his brother Larry, who joined the business in 1976, had separate responsibilities, while their mother, Joanne, and Hobbs’s wife, Helen, ran the office. Hobbs sold his portion of the business to Rider around 1978.
“I serviced truck tires, and Larry did wheel alignments,” said Rider. “On Saturdays, I’d go ‘bump’ tires at our customers’ businesses. I’d fix the flats so they’d be ready for Monday morning and I’d make service calls out to the ranches to change tires. We had contracts with trucking companies, commercial fleets and local agriculture. All the teenagers had hot cars. We sold a lot of tires.”
The family’s foray into the tire business started with Billy Ray working at Forsythe Tire, which later became Downey Tire, in Santa Rosa. When Downey Tire moved into the Mahoney Building at 264 Petaluma Blvd. North, where Buffalo Billiards is today, he became the manager.
Billy Ray (a former soldier stationed at Two Rock ranch station) and Joanne bought a house on Burlington Drive in the new Novak Meadows subdivision, which allowed their children Larry, Bill and Sharon, to walk to school.
In the early 1970s, Billy Ray and Hobbs opened a truck-tire business on Second Street. They moved to Jay & Bill’s current location in 1974. One of their earliest business decisions was what to call the business. They flipped a coin to choose between Jay & Bill’s, or Bill & Jay’s.
We all know how that turned out.
Amusingly, there’s another Petaluma business, Bill & Jay’s Auto Repair on English Street, that results in occasional mix-ups for customers.
“The business just kept growing and growing,” said Bill. “My dad was such a trustworthy guy, he’d help everybody.”
In 1982, Billy Ray suffered a debilitating heart attack and wasn’t able to work any longer, forcing Bill and Larry to become involved in management.
“We were thrown into the fire,” continued Bill. “We sold the truck-tire side of the business because it was harder to maintain 24-hour service. Not long after that, we took a big jump — we went to a four-day work week in order to lower our level of stress.”
It was Bill’s idea and it was a good one, points out Larry.
“We worked four 10-hour days,” he said. “We have lots of faithful customers. I’ve known the dads and granddads of current customers and mechanics that don’t do tires send us their business. It’s small-town Petaluma.”
After spending their working lives in the tire business, the brothers have mostly stepped away and since January, 2022, have handed over the operation of the business to Bill’s son, Bill Jr.
“I started learning how to change tires at 11 and began working summers when I was 16,” said 35-year-old Bill Jr. “I graduated from SRJC with a degree in Fire Technology before working full-time at the shop. I’m a tire man, not a fireman,” he quipped.
Over the years, many things have changed. For example, “In the old days you could just drop in, but today customers need an appointment,” said Bill Jr. But, some things remain the same.
“We’re still using handwritten work orders,” he said. “I’ve got some old invoices that list an after-hours service call for $25. The equipment has gotten better and the air guns have gotten lighter but the way we do things, the heavy lifting and labor, is basically the same.”
The business depends on “three core guys” who, according to Bill Sr., have been with the shop for decades.
“Peter Lombardi has been here for 34 years, Tim Cole for 35 years and Gabe Montero for 25 years,” he said. “We’ve been very fortunate to have the guys we’ve had and the crew we have today. Thanks to our strong work ethic, we’ve kept the quality in an ever-changing industry.”
That consistency and attention to detail has earned Jay & Bill’s Tire Shop eight consecutive Argus-Courier People’s Choice Awards, including two in 2023 for Best Tire Shop and Best Place to Buy Tires.
“It was all built with hard work and handshakes,” said Bill Sr. “My dad had a big coffee pot in the office. Customers would come in and we’d talk”
Now it’s time to relax. For the Rider brothers that means hopping on motorcycles and riding with friends. Larry and Bill are seasoned flat-track racers, who for many years competed at race tracks throughout the state.
“I retired from racing at 45, but among my best memories is competing against my son,” said Bill Sr. “He’s really carrying on the tradition. We never joined a club. We were just into motorcycles. It was a fun experience, we didn’t take it too seriously, we were just making friends.”
Harlan Osborne’s “Toolin’ Around Town” runs the second and fourth Friday of the month in the Argus-Courier. Contact him with your questions or ideas at [email protected].
Credit: Source link
