Cox reminisces about starting Karde’s 40 years ago

     One of the final guest “Spark Talk” speakers at the Monticello Heritage & Cultural Center was Dean Cox, Sr., who created the family business Karde’s.

   The Heritage Center hosted the “Spark! Places of Innovation” Smithsonian Museum exhibit until Dec. 8. As part of the exhibit, they brought in local business owners who had sparks of their own that led to creating a business in Monticello.

   Dean, Sr. opened Karde’s C-Store (convenience), aka. Karde’s 38, in May 1984. The business, now owned by the second generation of the Cox family, Dean, Jr. and Mike, celebrated its 40^th anniversary this summer.

   “In starting Karde’s, I guess I wanted to have a business of my own so I could give my kids a job,” recalled Dean, Sr. “Years ago, there weren’t that many jobs available in Monticello for kids, as I recall. So that basically was my thinking in starting Karde’s.”

   Before the Coxes (Dean and Karen) even came to Monticello, Dean was serving in the Air Force.

   “I wasn’t going to make a career of it,” he said of his military service. “We were in Japan for about two years and we came back to the states. Then I thought I needed to go to work; I didn’t have a job.”

   He got a job with New Holland, and later with his uncle, Ed Cox, who owned a farm implement shop in Monticello.

   “We were visiting with my brother up in Charles City, I asked him what he would suggest as far as a business was concerned. He turned me onto convenience stores,” Dean said.

   Karde’s C-Store is located where Roger Hearn’s Shell Service station was located.

   “The property was for sale, so we bought the property from Roger.”

   Dean needed some seed money to get his gas station built.

   “We took the plans to Merchants National Bank in Cedar Rapids and presented it to them,” he said. “They said, ‘Yeah, we can do that.’ So we got the money to build Karde’s 38. That’s how the whole thing got started.”

   Over the years, Dean spent many hours working at the store, not to mention his own kids and then grandkids. Dean, Jr., started working there in 1984 right off the bat. Mike started in 2008. Many of the grandkids started when they were yet in high school.

   “But all turned out to be worthwhile for many family members,” Dean, Sr. said fondly. “The people of Monticello supported it and still are, which I am very happy about.”

   Dean, Jr. and Mike built Karde’s 151 south of town in 2014, 10 years ago.

   “I didn’t have anything to do with Karde’s 151. I was done. No more debt for me,” joked Dean, Sr.

   Karde’s C-Store initially started out as a gas station. It didn’t become a convenience store until Dean chose to remodel. He and his sons traveled un a U-Haul to Waterloo to a QuikTrip auction and brought back equipment to expand their business.

   “Snow was on the ground; 3 to 4 inches of snow coming back with a U-Haul truck,” laughed Dean.

   That same equipment and furniture remained inside the store until 2012 when Dean and Mike took over ownership.

   Throughout his years in business, Dean said many employees and other businesses were very supportive. Ken McDermott, owner of McDermott Oil in Cascade, was one of his biggest cheerleaders. That’s where Dean bought his fuel from.

   “They (McDermotts) helped me with the paperwork as far as what I needed to have initially. Without Ken, he was the one who basically made it possible for me to what I did.”

   There were also a couple of dedicated employees who stuck around for years…

   “There were a couple employees in particular who were working there all the time,” Dean said. “I told them we probably should the convenience store after you guys (Jeannie Luensman and Pam Boul).

   “What I told our employees when they started working there, ‘The most important thing here is not you; not me, but the customers when they come in the door. You need to smile at them, you need to greet them, and you need to thank them for their business. That was the only thing I was really a stickler on and assisted on.”

   When Karde’s first opened, Dean said there were over a dozen other gas stations in Monticello. He favored the Hearn Shell Station location “because a lot of the traffic town was going by there going to work or the grocery stores and the factories.”

   “You always told me it was because there were too many pumps on (old Highway) 151,” Dean, Jr. added.

   “That was true, too. There were too many pumps in Monticello, actually,” Dean, Sr. added.

   “It’s definitely been a very successful business for you,” praised Penny Schoon, a member of the Heritage Center board.

   “It's been quite a journey,” Dean, Sr. said fondly.