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Endurance, perseverance and above all else customer service are driving points in any business being a success.

For the Muffler Center, they have 50 years to back that up and on Dec. 14, they will be celebrating that milestone with the community.

From 2-6 p.m., the Muffler Center will be welcoming people to the shop for an open house that will allow people to not only meet the people behind the Muffler Center, but to get an up close view of the history of the business as well as its new additions.

“The scope of what we do is a lot more,” said Mitch Meyer, who together with his wife Stephanie joined with brother Marshall to take over the shop late in 2019, and opened under that new ownership in February of 2020. “Fifty years is a long time to be in one place with the same name, same business doing a lot of the same work. Fifty years is kind of a big deal.”

For those at the Muffler Center, it will be just under five years of ownership, after the Meyer’s purchased the Muffler Center from long time owners, Harold and Steve Sorenson.

But within that time span, a lot has been added to expand the business from mostly muffler work into a fully encompassing repair shop.

Early in 2024, they finished construction of a 40 by 65 square foot garage on the north side of the business, which serves as the repair portion of the Muffler Center, including a 15,000 pound heavy duty hoist.

Currently, they are working on a remodel of the reception area that will give a fresh look to customers and visitors. Meyer said that in the half a century the business has been in operation, the last 40 years have seen very little in the way of change.

“It’s been strenuous and stressful, but rewarding at the same time,” Meyer said. “The feedback we’ve gotten from customers and the public thus far has been really positive. People who aren’t even our customers come to the shop to tell us they like what we’re doing here.”

It certainly wasn’t easy to get to this point. According to Stephanie, when the two first started dating and later married, she knew that Mitch wanted to own his own shop. But at the same time they wanted to expand their family.

Stephanie said that when Mitch approached her about the Sorenson’s selling, she had other news to tell him.

“Harold and Steve wanted to sell and he said, ‘I think we should wait on having kids,’” Stephanie said and answered him by saying, “Honey, I’m pregnant.”

Throw in a global pandemic and things were interesting to say the least. Still, Stephanie said that hard work by all those involved led to where they are today.

“I would say we have been very fortunate and very blessed through the whole process,” she said. “It hasn’t always been easy, but we have a good team and a good support network around us.”

“I would say we’ve worked hard to get where we are and the work has paid off,” Meyer added.

So much so that they’ve been able to make the adjustments and additions to the shop as well as increase staff size.

Aside from Marshall at the shop, there is Tae Weber and Justin List, the latter being the most recent hire to the shop.

“It’s a really good group of guys,” Meyer said. “Justin is the new employee and he’s been with us for six months, but he fits like peanut butter and jelly.

“The last two months have been record sales for us,” he added. “It’s been a lot in five years.”

While there is plenty of new at the Muffler Center, Meyer said that it’s worked in well with the tradition of service at the Muffler Center.

There has been change, but in a lot of ways it’s just a continuation of what the shop has offered in the past.

“(The Sorensons) did a nice job and I think we take it a step further. With the addition of the services we offer beyond the exhaust work, I think it has really kind of set us apart from our competitors,” Meyer said. “We gave those guys something to be proud of seeing what we’ve done with the business.”

As for looking ahead, Meyer doesn’t have any real firm plans, but  he knows he wants to build something that they all can stay with for a very long time.

“We’ve been blessed,” he said. “Ideally, we want to take really good care of our employees and treat them like family.”

“We try to do philanthropy the best we can, but it’s challenging sometimes when you’re reinvesting profits back into the business,” he continued. “But I think we’re nearing the point now where some of that reinvestment is going to start to subside so we can take care of our employees and give back to the community in a lot of different ways.”

The Muffler Center is located at 1204 West Oakland Avenue in Austin.