SHOPKEEPER: MASTER CLASS
FROM APRIL/MAY 2022 ISSUE OF WEST END PHOENIX
For Josie Candito, who runs a beloved automotive shop at Howard Park and Dundas, the road to success is about caring for more than just cars
Twenty-three years ago, Josie Candito set out to create a new kind of auto shop. “I can’t say it was easy being a woman in the automotive industry in 1999,” says the owner of Master Mechanic High Park. “But I always thought of that as noise in the background. It was important for me to make something different, a safe and inclusive environment for everyone.”
Working at the time as an accountant for Master Mechanic, she travelled all over Ontario to support new branches of the Canadian franchise. “I just fell in love,” she says. “Where accounting could be isolating, I saw people connecting with customers like they were a kind of family.”
So, when a new location opened up in High Park, Candito saw her chance to fulfill a lifelong dream of owning her own business. “I felt this connection when I visited the area and decided to take a leap of faith.”
In short order she took charge and became the first woman to own a Master Mechanic franchise. Recently, Canadian Auto Repair and Service magazine (CARS) crowned it Canadian Shop of the Year, and her partner, Rui Silvestre, Technician of the Year. It’s also regularly named a Reader’s Choice winner in the Toronto Star and NOW.
The accolades and the shop’s loyal customer base are a testament to Candito’s community-centred approach to running a business. One wall of its front office is devoted to a mural celebrating health-care workers. And a tall sign in the parking lot – a familiar sight to anyone passing by Dundas and Howard Park – features an ongoing selection of tender messages: “Believe in yourself, love yourself, you’re perfect just the way u are.”
“Our message board is our portal to the community,” says Candito. “We get phone calls and emails from people saying how they were having a bad day or they had to make a big decision in their life, and that little message meant something to them. They tell us how they stood up for themselves or how it made them laugh that day. If it gets people smiling, I’d much rather put that up than an advertisement out there.”
Dogs are a big part of life at Master Mechanic High Park. Once a year, the store serves as the grounds for Woofest! – a dog festival hosted by Candito, who donates the proceeds to local animal shelters. The shop’s unofficial CEO is a spaniel named Charlie whom Candito found freezing on the side of the road in 2014.
“He didn’t have a leash or a collar,” she says. “We tried looking for the owner, but no one came forward, so I ended up adopting him. At the time, I had lost both my bulldogs and my parents in the space of a year and a half. Every time I thought of getting another dog, I just felt like it would hurt too much. Then Charlie fell from the sky. Everybody says, ‘You know, he’s so lucky he’s got you.’ But we’re the lucky ones. I just try to be the person he thinks I am.”
Since then, Candito has travelled to Ottawa on multiple occasions to testify in support of animal rights legislation. Customers are welcome to bring their own dogs to the shop. Charlie is a much-beloved fixture of the community.
Candito (top, with the shop’s rescue spaniel, Charlie), the first woman to own a Master Mechanic franchise, credits the garage’s success to her team, led by Rui Silvestre (third from right).
Candito credits much of her success to her team, led by Silvestre. “Rui is such a talented technician and still manages to bring so much warmth to the front desk,” she says. “Customer service is about so much more than ‘drop off your car, this is what you need, goodbye.’ You have to listen to people, especially in the last couple of years. Everyone is going through such a rough time. It’s important to me to work with people who can extend that empathy. All I ever wanted for my business was to create a culture where people feel heard, where your team and your customers feel like family. I’m grateful we were able to do that. I haven’t looked back since.”