David Dollo was 12 or 13 years old – skipping Christmas Eve mass in Kinmount – when he got a knock on the door telling him the family store on main street Minden was on fire.
It was the early 1960s and David said it took him about 15 seconds to run to Bobcaygeon Road, where a fire had started beside Dollo Brothers’ oil tank.
He said the blaze eventually burned down what is today Stedmans V&S, with the heat blowing out the window of the bowling alley across the street. Dollo Brothers IGA was spared, but heavily water damaged.
“It was a big hit to the Dollo Brothers’ pocketbook,” David recalled during a recent interview with The Highlander. They had to install a new roof, replace the wall adjacent to Stedmans, and replenish stock.
The fire is just one in a long line of memories for the Dollo family, who are celebrating 70 years in Minden Hills. An employee reunion is planned for June 13.
Brothers, Peter and Joe Dollo, followed their older sister to Haliburton County. She was in the produce business, assisted by an uncle in east York, who had a fruit market.
“It was a completely natural thing for them. They didn’t know anything else,” David said of the family business.
The brothers got into the industry prior to opening the IGA in 1956, operating out of where the Traditional Barber is today. They sold produce and canned goods. The two bought a wooden-paneled, sixton truck. They went to the Ontario Food Terminal in Toronto to get their produce with a pocketful of cash, spending the night with their parents in east York. They then delivered, mainly up Hwy. 35 to the lodges.
They opened Dollo Brothers IGA Food Market on Bobcaygeon Road, where the Little Beans Café is now, 70 years ago. David said Peter and Joe helped to construct it, laying their own blocks, and opening in December 1956.
Former employee and reunion organizer, John Davis, said it was a big deal. “Suddenly, Minden had a franchise. Some of the stories I read were actually from the Lindsay papers, talking about this new store coming to Minden that was going to have cheaper prices because there was more buying power. People came to shop at the store from Fenelon Falls and Coboconk, Haliburton and north of Minden. Tourists decided they wouldn’t have to buy their groceries in Toronto and bring them to Minden. That really was a huge bonus for the whole town of Minden and the County.”
They eventually moved to 163 Bobcaygeon Rd. before landing at their current location along Hwy. 35.
Changes
David said there have been many changes and challenges over the years.
There was the deal his dad made with IGA, run by the Wolfe family and known as The Oshawa Group. It was a leading owner of supermarkets in Ontario until it was purchased by Empire Company Limited – owners of Sobeys – in 1998. Today’s Dollo’s Foodland is part of the Sobeys chain.
“The handshake deal my dad and uncle had with Ray Wolfe was gone. They now had to have a signed franchise agreement with all kinds of lettering and legal documentation,” David recalled.
On the plus side, Sobeys offered “a lot more backbone, deeper pockets, so we could weather any competitive storm.”
Despite being owned by a large Canadian grocery chain, David said his family has remained a part of the community – and has always preached a customer-first mentality.
“We’re in our fourth generation now. The third generation is running the store. Some of our fourth generation are teenagers and a little bit older who are off to post-secondary school but coming back to work in the summer.”
David took a business marketing course in college, but returned every weekend from school to work in the store. It’s in the blood. David added he had the privilege of working with his cousins, from about 1958-1960 to 1975. “My uncle Joe and auntie Florence had four girls, Joan, Louise, Angie and Rose, and the youngest Joe Jr.” David’s sister, Marianne, also worked at the store through high school until she went off to be a nurse.
David said they couldn’t have reached this milestone without the town.
“The community has been good to us. They’ve supported us for many years. So, it’s pretty easy for us to make a decision about giving back to the community,” he added of their many contributions to the Highlands.
They’ve gone through other challenges, such as COVID-19 and the Northeast Blackout of 2003.
With the pandemic, David talked about the restrictions that needed to be put in place. “It was very real for us… we were in the face of the public every moment of every day, and being concerned for our employees.”
With the blackout, he noted Minden Hills did not lose power, but “everybody came from the city if they could get gas. Those types of mother nature things are very challenging.”
Employees
David and Davis estimate there could be as many as 1,000 current and past employees.
Davis began working in the store in 1966, fresh out of high school. He met his wife of 52 years, Debi (Gough), while working at Dollo’s in 1973.
“Newspapers always do things like recognize great athletes, but small businesses are really the nuts and bolts that hold the community together. It’s why I wanted to organize the reunion, to bring together current and past employees and try to get as many Dollos as we can from all walks of life. I think it’s really important that we recognize those contributions.”
The two reminisced about packing groceries for 60 cents an hour, and pushing carts to the Gull River to load up boats. There were the Kilcoo camp shopping trips with $2-3 tips. There were lunch time visits to the bowling alley. There were staff picnics and Gull River floats.
Asked what Peter and Joe Dollo would think of the 70-year legacy and how the store is doing today, Davis said they’d be “proud as hell.”
David added, “they would probably scratch their heads and say, ‘oh my God, I don’t know how you deal with it…”
The reunion is June 13 from 5-11 p.m. at the Minden Hills Community Centre, with food and a DJ supplied, and cash bar.
Email dolloreunion70@gmail.com
