When two longtime neighboring businesses had to find new locations, they hatched a plan to stick together.
Sonny Ghelani had owned and operated On The Go, a Howell Township party store, for about 16 years when he had to close and move out. Ghelani's landlords, a Canadian-based development firm that owns Grand River Mini-Storage, had decided to expand the storage business.
It meant bulldozing the party store and an adjoining business, Auto One Glass & Accessories.
Ghelani built a 7,400-square-foot building directly across the street for his new party store, Grand River Party Store & Sub, which will soon also feature Burrito Bar, a Mexican takeout eatery.
Ghelani did not leave his longtime neighbors behind. He teamed up with the auto business and built it a new shop with a showroom and several service bays. It is attached to his store, like old times.
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Ghelani said he has had both good and bad luck.
"When COVID-19 hit, we were almost ready to open, and then it got pushed back months," he said Friday, also saying there had already been some construction delays. He said he finally opened the new store last week.
His next step is to open the first Burrito Bar franchise location in the U.S. He said he hopes to open it inside the store this summer.
"It's a Canadian franchise, and this will be the first one in the U.S., so I'm changing the name from BarBurrito, which is what they call it there," he said.
The only hitch, he will need to complete corporate training first, which he said has been delayed by COVID-19 and restrictions at the Canada border.
The store also features a submarine sandwich counter, which is open.
Ghelani said he did not originally plan to build a new business. Grand River Mini-Storage expanded onto his former party store property. The storage company's additions included new offices and and new storage units, including a 19,000-square foot, 3-story building.
"I didn't want to go too far," he said. "Luckily this land was available. If this land weren't available, I don't know if we would be out here in Howell anymore."
The property, at 2425 W. Grand River Ave., was the site of a vacant single-family rental home, which was demolished.
Jeff Best, who runs the Auto One location, said it was a relief to reopen.
"It's been a long process. Things were only supposed to take months, and it was a whole year since we closed," Best said.
The business temporarily relocated to part of a former Tenpenny Furniture building in Genoa Township near downtown Howell. Livingston County businessman Alan Ostlund is in the midst of transforming into it into a multi-tenant space fit for restaurants, retail businesses, commercial offices and perhaps a microbrewery.
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Ostlund offered Auto One use of the space until it was time to rebuild that portion of the building.
Best said they temporarily shut down the Auto One location there in March due to COVID-19.
"Now that we're in the brand new building, we can expand into the space and hire more technicians," he said.
"I've been with the company for 12 years and I've had a good working business relationship with Sonny throughout," he said. "He was getting kicked out of there, too, and we'd had adjoining buildings for years. We moved across the street together and now he's the landlord."
Contact Livingston Daily reporter Jennifer Timar at 517-548-7148 or at jtimar@livingstondaily.com. Follow her on Facebook @Jennifer.Timar99 and Twitter @JenTimar99.
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