Frank’s Gulf in Saugus celebrates 50th year

SAUGUS – In the age of conglomerates and corporations, it can be rare to receive personalized service, but Rich Aiello of Frank’s Gulf will tell you “service” is what has kept his family in business for 50 years.Aiello’s wife Lisa and his mother Anna put together a quiet celebration this week hanging a banner and balloons from the gas pumps to ring in the family business’ golden anniversary.In the corner of the small waiting room just off the service area is a collage of photos from the day the station first opened – May 1958. The black and white images show a proud man, a fabulous car and gas for sale at 28 cents per gallon.”My father used to say you treat people like they want to be treated,” Aiello said. “It sounds like old school fashion, and it is, but it’s why we’ve survived all these years.”Frank Aiello opened the Gulf Station that bears his name in 1958. His wife Anna was one month away from delivering the son that would carry on the family business.”I knew he’d end up here,” she said with a smile.Actually, Anna said later she never expected the family would hold on to this part of the business so long, but she said this station was the smallest and most favored.Frank Aiello and his brother initially opened four stations, one each in Beverly, Malden, Salem and Saugus. The Central Street station was the only one to survive.”This was a real community business back then,” Aiello said. “Fifty years ago it was a real tight community.”Old-timers, as Aiello calls them, would come by the station every day with coffee and doughnuts to just hang out. Everyone knew everyone else by name and the long hours resulted in a life you could be proud of.Aiello said much of that has changed with the exception of the morals and values and the way his father taught him to conduct business.”He was fanatical about service, but it’s what made him successful,” he said.Aiello said his father lived by the creed that everyone has problems, but you leave them at home. Over the years he said he learned that simply saying hello to people, talking to them a little and being polite went a very long way.And like his father, Aiello knows the majority of his customers by name and they know him by his bright smile.”I don’t think you get that (kind of service) at other places,” Anna said. “They’re all self-service. There isn’t anyone to talk to.”Aiello started working with his father when he was 13. He swept floors, pumped gas and cleaned the bathrooms. By 16 he was working on cars. By 18 he was working nights and weekends giving his dad a break and putting himself through four years of pre-med.In the end, the station won out over medicine and Aiello came back to the garage and the job he loved full time.”I just loved being down here, it was just me,” he said.He said he also loved working side-by-side with his father, who died four years ago.”I wish he was here,” he said softly. “He was the kingpin . . . this is his legacy.”And Anna’s – she has done the books for the station every night for 50 years.”She’s the quiet, the silent partner,” Lisa said. “She is the rock of this place.”While Aiello has no plans to close anytime soon, he admits it’s getting tougher and tougher for small businessmen to survive.As he talks, Phil Barbanti of neighboring Guy’s Liquor arrives to congratulate Aiello with a bottle of champagne.”I’ve been here 28 years,” Barbanti said. “He’s a great neighbor but for small businesses, it’s getting tougher and tougher each day.”Aiello said the biggest challenge is simply surviving. Between health and liability insurance, permits, fees and testing, he said the station barely turns a profit anymore.”Years ago you could see the benefits,” he said. “Today it goes out faster than it comes in.”But that has not stopped him from taking a young mechanic, Justin Watson, under his wing or starting his son in the family business just as he started all those years ago.”He wants to pump gas and get tips,” Aiello said with a smile. “He’s going to be 13, i