Posted: 9:00 a.m. Sunday, June 29, 2014

McCrabb: Businessman says he’s ‘run out of gas’

By  http://www.journal-news.com/staff/rick-mccrabb/" rel="nofollow - Staff Writer

    MIDDLETOWN — Bill Mehl is 67, with deteriorating health and he has “run out of gas.”

    It’s time to move on, he says, to sell his business, and to retire to St. Petersburg, Fla., where they don’t have winters like we endured last year.

    He called the decision “a pretty easy one.”

    Mehl is trying his sell Broadway News, a business he has owned for 21 years, since he brought it from Tom and Lucy Ewing. He has tried to sell the business before, a few years ago, back when the economy “went to hell,” he said.

    Now it’s on the market for $225,000, which includes the business and the building, what he called “a very, very good price.”

    Then he added: “I want to move it.”

    But there’s another catch: Mehl wants whoever buys Broadway News to retain his employees, whom he calls “my family.” On Wednesday afternoon, Mehl walked into    Broadway News, 100 S. Main St., and it was like a family reunion. Behind the counter, busy selling Ohio Lottery tickets, were three employees, Diane Brock, Stephanie Jones and Peggy Crockett, who have more than 20 years of work experience at Broadway News.

    It’s not like Mehl bosses them around. He has trained them, and now trusts them enough to run the business.

   “He’s a good boss,” Brock said.

When asked what that means, she said: “He treats you like you’re somebody.”

Crockett joined Broadway News after Kelly’s Market, a family-owned business, closed, ending her 20-year career there. She said 75 percent of the customers at Broadway are the same ones from Kelly’s.

    “Without these customers,” she said, “none of us would have a job.”

    She called Mehl “an amazing person.”

    They said these things after he left for the day.

    Broadway News doesn’t feel like some of those corporate owned carry-outs where the employees would rather be on their cellphones than assisting customers. Most of the customers are greeted by their first name, and the employees know why they’re there: to buy lottery tickets, pick up a milk, buy a newspaper or pay their utility bills.

    Brock recalled a conversation she had with the Ohio Lottery agent. He services more than 100 lottery outlets, and while Broadway News is the top seller in the city, something else separates it from the competition, he noticed.

    “He couldn’t believe how we treat our customers and how they treat us,” Brock said.    “While he was here, one of them said, ‘Love you girls” as he walked out the door and we said back, ‘Love you too.’”

    Other stores attract customers with loyalty cards. At Broadway, they just show loyalty.   Mehl has had eight employees over the last 21 years. You do the math.

    But all things have to end, and for Mehl, that time is now. He has lost vision in his left eye after cataract surgery, and blood clots in his legs have moved to his lungs.

    He offered the business to his two daughters, but they have seen the stress the long hours put on their father, plus they have their careers and families.

    Mehl bought Broadway News, then moved it out of the Sorg Opera House into the former Parrot Restaurant. He said business has been “good,” and he expects it to increase as the downtown continues its revitalization. He’s hopeful Cincinnati State Middletown, a renovated Sorg Opera House, and a bed-and-breakfast at the Sorg Mansion will draw people downtown.

    “It’s going to happen,” he said.

     And he hopes to read about it — while sitting on the beach.