Leaving auto repair life in the rear-view

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This article was published 07/07/2022 (1204 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For decades, Cadillacs, Mustangs and Audis have overnighted in the Exchange District for repairs and transformations.

Now, a Winnipeg mechanic envisions a new use for his shop — one that sees it filled with milk and produce instead of wrenches and tires.

“There’s no groceries down here,” said Andy Baranowski, owner of J.W. McDonald Auto Service. “Where are you going to get your milk?”

The 189 Bannatyne Ave. building has been an auto repair garage for almost a century — since 1923, according to the Manitoba Historical Society.

“A lot of people (now) live in the area,” he said. “I know — I get lots of them in here.”

He’s selling his shop and doesn’t want the site to continue as J.W. McDonald Auto Service under a new owner.

“We always try and do everything right and make sure that the quality’s there,” he said. “We don’t know what (the buyers are) going to be like.”

The 3,000-square-foot garage is roughly 500 metres from Portage and Main. Fine food retailer Mottola Grocery on Hargrave Street and smaller convenience stores are the only nearby grocery options.

Leah Arnott brought her Honda Civic to Baranowski for years.

She’s an interior designer. When she heard the repair site was closing, she offered to create a rendering of what the place could be. The design is in the works.

“It’s a machine shop, right — who’s going to walk in and see it any different?” Arnott said.

She can.

Industrial windows could replace the garage doors, Arnott said. The building could be lighter, and reclaimed brick could be added.

“It should have a really good neighbourhood vibe,” she said. “I don’t think there’s really anything like it in Winnipeg that I have a vision of.”

Arnott has worked with De Luca’s and Ellement Wine + Spirits, among other places. The Exchange District garage has potential to be a different “cute little building,” not just a grocery store, she noted.

Getting the rezoning to make a grocery retailer is “not insurmountable,” Arnott said.

The site would need to have the appropriate commercial zoning and meet certain building code requirements to be approved for occupancy, according to Kalen Qually, a City of Winnipeg spokesman.

“I don’t see it as being a super high end little grocery store,” Arnott said. “That’s not what the neighbourhood needs.”

Residences are dotted throughout downtown and the Exchange District, including on Bannatyne Avenue, Waterfront Drive and Main Street.

Arnott said she’ll miss the auto service centre.

“(Baranowski has) been such a great mechanic all these years,” she said. “He’s very honest, and it’s a great little shop.”

Baranowski got his first taste of J.W. McDonald Auto Service as a child, when his dad would take Buicks in for repair.

The shop was under control of John McDonald, the company’s namesake. McDonald took over the long-standing site in the early 1960s, according to the Manitoba Historical Society.

“(McDonald) says, ‘Kid, don’t ever get into this business,’” Baranowski said. “I was about 12 years old at the time, and I thought, ‘Ah, no, I kind of like this.’”

He later began at the Winnipeg shop as an apprentice and stayed on. Lawyers and white-collar professionals downtown would bring their vehicles for tune-ups and fixes.

“There’ll be the grandfathers that have been coming, the fathers, the sons, the daughters,” said Stefan Baranowski, Andy’s brother and a mechanic at the shop.

“We haven’t even really advertised,” he said.

Andy Baranowski left the shop for British Columbia with his family. He returned five years later, in 1987, and bought the company from McDonald.

“(Customers) used to drive Buicks, Cadillacs, things like that,” Baranowski noted. “They’ve all evolved into Audis, Beemers, Mercedes, so you have to evolve with it.”

Still, his team of three and a half — the shop sometimes had an apprentice — saw plenty of old cars, even in its final month.

At the end of June, mechanics had hoisted a 1971 burgundy Rolls-Royce for work.

The pandemic didn’t affect business for more than a week, Baranowski said. The 67-year-old is closing shop because he wants to retire and travel.

“Cancer might come back, I don’t know,” said Baranowski, who had stomach cancer in 1997. “I don’t want to be working here when that’s happening.”

His brother expressed sadness over the auto shop’s end.

“There’s a lot of history here,” he said. “This has almost been part of downtown for such a long time that it’s going to be weird to see it disappear and have something else take its place.”

J.W. McDonald Auto Service would continue operations until the hoists — which had been sold at the end of June — were taken out of the building, Baranowski said.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com