Service Lube expanding facility

CHRIS ROUSH/DAILY FORUM
A crew works on the Service Lube expansion being built behind the business’ existing location at 1321 South Main Street in Maryville. According to owner Keith Arnold, the additional space will allow Service Lube to offer more auto services more efficiently to more customers.

For the past 26 years Service Lube, located at 1321 South Main Street in Maryville, has offered while-you-wait oil changes and other automotive maintenance services.

Now, the business is adding a new building near its current location that will house operations related to ongoing expansion.

Service Lube owner Keith Arnold said the structure, which is going up behind the existing building, will provide needed additional space.

“It’s been pretty recent,” Arnold said. “It was about a year ago we took on a new enterprise, and that was tire service, the sale of tires and repairs.

“We thought it tied in with our oil changes, and a lot of people that come in have a nail in a tire or something, but we’d have to send it off to somewhere else. We thought it was a good fit for us because we could fix that rather quickly while the customer waited.”

In addition, about six months ago, Service Lube added Travis Cronk as a mechanic.

“It grew faster than we anticipated,” Arnold said. “(Cronk) was one of the head mechanics down at Schreck Auto, and we had an opportunity to bring him on.

“This allowed us to add some more services, and it’s just been very well received. We decided at that point we had more than what we could handle with this facility.”

Service Lube manager Joe Partridge said the No. 1 one reason for the additional space is to make sure the staff can help as many customers as possible. But, he said, it’s also important to make sure that all maintenance operations are done right as well as fast.

“We want to help our customers,” Partridge said. “People don’t like to wait a long time to get their tires rotated, so this will help us serve more people at once.”

Right now, Service Lube employs five people, with Travis Cronk serving as head mechanic and Curtis Cronk, his brother, serving as tire specialist.

Arnold said there is the possibility that additional staff will be hired in the future.

Construction on the new building started two weeks ago, and Arnold said he expects it to be finished in early December, weather permitting.