Chuck Eckel
Chuck Eckel is a very prominent business man in Worthington, Ohio. He owns local land and buildings where small businesses get there start. He is most known though for being the founder and owner of a local market called Eckel’s Market off of Sawmill and Hard Road in Worthington. When you think of Chuck Eckel one word should come to mind, success. Throughout his childhood he struggled to survive but he overcame the obstacles that he faced and is now one of the most well known business men her in central Ohio. Having run his store for more than 20 years and having to deal with customers, employees, and other hassles of the job force it seems as though he has still managed to keep his life intact and somewhat similar to the regular person’s. No matter what comes at him, he always seems to take it in stride. This is his story…
Well I grew up in a middle class neighborhood on the south side of Columbus with 11 brothers and sisters and then my mom and dad. My dad was a hardworking guy, never made much money. He just tried to take care of us kids and I pretty much learned how to work hard from my dad. He had two or three jobs a lot of times, so it was pretty hectic. My dad, either my mom or my dad, were probably the most influential people in my life. My dad probably more because he worked so hard and struggled so much to support all 12 kids and to put food on the table. It was so hard for him, I think, he drank a little bit too much so he had trouble with that for a number of years and I learned that you really can mix drinking that much with families. I looked up to my dad for all his hard work and I could learn some other things from his bad habits, but I learned that the good and the bad from my dad.
I pretty much started working by the time I was 10 years old. My family had a paper route that was kind of passed down through the boys of the family. I probably had that job from the time when I was 10 probably till I was 15 in high school; we just got other jobs so probably for about five years. I then worked at my school to help earn my families tuition that was then only like $400 a year but it seemed like a lot more because you were only making $1.50 an hour or something.
Around that time we got interrupted because some lady wanted to talk to him. He wasn’t so happy about that. Once that was over we then started talking about how he moved up here and started a business…
Well…my brother in-law opened up a market right after I got out of high school and I worked there for 9 ½ years just learning the business about how you treat people and how you just try and give a fair price and a decent product so they’ll come to you instead of going to a major store like Lawson’s or whatever. Pretty soon after that someone mentioned to me that I should try and open up a store in the northwest part of Columbus. I thought it would be hard to do, but after the persuasion of my father in-law and my wife I finally decided to give it a try. When I first started off up here all I wanted to do was survive. I didn’t know with the Dairy Mart next to me, and a drive thru on the other side, and me being the third wheel, I didn’t know if it was big enough for all three of us but I knew that I put everything I had, every little bit of money I saved, into this. We even put the money from my wedding into this. We tried to get a $10000 dollar loan from the bank but they turned us down. I asked the land lord if he’d let me slide for a few months just so we could get started here, and he said it would be alright. I finally opened up about three weeks after I was supposed to. I opened up about halfway through the day and I think we did 300 some dollars. The second day we did like $900 and I knew from that point on that everything was gonna be alright.
After we finished talking about starting out I then asked him about how an average day at work goes and what he enjoys most about his business.
Well, I use to go to market about three times a week. I’d wake up at four and go out to the airport and I’d pick out the produce I wanted and then bring it back here in my truck and unload it all. After that I balance my registers. My first 10 years I didn’t have the lottery so I only had one register to balance. I’d count the money and make sure everything, you know, was balanced. I would then open at seven. My first number of years her I opened and closed. Open at seven in the morning and close by 10:30 at night. When I would drive home I’d fall asleep driving most nights. I just couldn’t keep my eyes open, people would say you can’t work 100 hours a week. Well, back then I was pretty much working 100 hours a week easily. People say you can’t work that much but if you add up the week when you open and work 15 hours a day, 7 days a week, and go out to market three times a week as well, you can add up the hours pretty quickly.
I enjoy seeing the people that come in my store every day, that gets to be like family. Like the TV show Cheers, people just like coming to that place and you see so many of the same people every day or every other day, you just get to be like a family. It’s also nice getting along with your workers as well. I opened Eckel’s when I was around 25 ½ and most of the guys that work for me now are between probably 18 and 28. They just get to be like my kids so I enjoy that. I enjoy watching them, grow up and learn, and help them out. I want to be a helper; I just don’t want to be a boss. Just kind of be a friend and get along with them and have fun with them. I just want my store to be more of a family store.
We were interrupted again after this. After he was done with whatever it was he started talking about his experiences with college…
Well, you know, growing up I always wanted to go to college cause my dad didn’t go and I wanted to go to college. I could’ve gone for free; I wrestled in high school and had an opportunity to get a partial scholarship there and all the rest would be paid for. I just decided not to go, I probably should’ve. I wish to this day but, I just had an opportunity to work hard. I worked as many 60 some hour weeks I could just to start having money. I wanted to buy a car first and that got me started. One thing just led to another. But, if I had could go back and change anything I’d definitely go to college and get an education because now that I got three kids and one just graduated from college and I have to more in college. It was important to me that they were going to get an education. I never had ambitions of them running the store because this is no easy way to make a living when you’re working Friday’s, Saturdays, and Sunday’s and everybody else is out there with their families having fun. Get them through college, and I think the main body of my work would be done. If you raise your kids to be contributing adults to society in a good manner and to get their educations, there’s probably nothing more to me than that. I don’t think I was successful for a while without a college education, it’s tough. I don’t know how I made that decision.
To me the American dream is being able to support your family, have a house to live in, and get your kids through college, like I said before, and be good citizens. I’m getting close to accomplishing those; I’m still trying to hang on to the married life. I’m getting close but I still got two more kids to get through college, but to me that’s the American dream. Eventually, by the time I’m 60, I won’t have to work anymore. I would’ve put in enough time and gathered enough assets through my real estate that I never have to work again.
After talking about some serious topics I decided to throw a curve at him and ask him what he thought were some of the funniest experiences he’s had to deal with. Like with customers or employees. Since I started working with him about a year ago I have been in some pretty sticking situations that I hoped he would elaborate on but he didn’t. Some pretty shady stuff tends to go down there a lot it seems. Like, just last week we had a situation with a lady being somewhat of a crack whore, I guess. I’ve also been involved personally with someone getting caught smoking crack in the cooler while I was there, and I’ve also had to deal with a gambling addict just to name a few.
Well, there is a lot of funny things that have happened here. I came in one time and had a high school kid and an adult, that was 25, and I looked around on the counter and there was some glasses of beer sitting around in Styrofoam cups, and they didn’t expect me to stop in. Like, here is a high school student that’s not even allowed to slice on the meat slicer and they are drinking beer with this 25 year old guy. So that was one of them but I told these guys I don’t have a license to drink here in the store. That would just kill me when people would drink in my store. So they would go fishing, and they would always take a twelve-pack and go fishing. Well, I didn’t care what they did out there, just as long as the oldest guy bough the beer or whatever. Then they thought it would be funny to come in here and hide all the beer cans here in my store. They’d hide some back in the cooler, under the deli, so I’d think they’d be drinking it in here, but they always thought that was the funniest thing. That and the April Fools last year when Mike thought it would be funny to put on my sign that we had a sewage backup and that Eckel’s would be closed tomorrow because of it, and underneath it say April Fools. I walked in that morning and didn’t even see the sign; it was right on the outside of my building, on the big reader board. Well, I didn’t see it. It was up there part of the day. Well, I didn’t see it and I didn’t find it that funny at all either. And then they switched around all my deli signs to say something different like chocolate pudding was on the bologna, I didn’t notice that all day either. So everything we had in the deli was either tapioca pudding, chocolate pudding, potato salad, German potato salad, or something else and all my signs were mixed up and they thought that would be funny as heck but I really didn’t think it was that funny. That was a couple of things. Little things like that, they thought were more funny than me.
After that I thought I’d get serious again for the last question and I decided to ask him why he has become so successful in life coming from such a humble background and what he plans on doing in the future
I’m only successful because I have been able to take care of my family. I’ve never taken the easy road. Everything I’ve done, growing up it seems, I’ve taken the hard road instead of the easy road, not that college would be the easy road. It’s just if you didn’t have the money you weren’t gonna get it. Am I successful? I guess you can say just raising your kids and taking care of them, and in the future what do I want to do? I don’t know, I think in the next eight years or so either sell this place to somebody that I think can appreciate making a living off or it or hire somebody to run it, take it easy for a change. It’s probably been 10, 11, 12 years since I’ve had a week off. I did take 4 days off for the Ohio State National Championship game, but that’s the last four days in a row I’ve had off. That’s hard. You grow up and not take your kids on vacation like most other people. That’s not easy you know. They did play baseball all summer long so I like being on the baseball field with them. When I’d get off work I’d coach them a lot. Go out on the field and just enjoy that. That was our enjoyment. I don’t think my children really realize what they missed. Of course, sometimes they go on vacation with the friends, and they taken a couple of trips with the in-laws and my wife, while I stayed here. So that was kind of hard, but overall, hopefully, everything goes good and things don’t turn out to bad or anything like that where I won’t be able to retire at 60 years old but I hope to be done when I’m 60 years old I guess.
So I guess you can say that he’s been pretty successful with his life based on where he’s come from and what he’s had to go through. I’m sure there is more to his story than just this but he’s one not to tell you the whole story, so I don’t know. I had a fun time getting to know more about him though. He also enjoyed it as well. He thought it was kind of funny that I would choose a guy like him because it seems like he doesn’t really pay that much attention to what all he’s accomplished in life. I don’t think he really will until he retires. Who knows when that will be?
Chuck Eckel is a very prominent business man in Worthington, Ohio. He owns local land and buildings where small businesses get there start. He is most known though for being the founder and owner of a local market called Eckel’s Market off of Sawmill and Hard Road in Worthington. When you think of Chuck Eckel one word should come to mind, success. Throughout his childhood he struggled to survive but he overcame the obstacles that he faced and is now one of the most well known business men her in central Ohio. Having run his store for more than 20 years and having to deal with customers, employees, and other hassles of the job force it seems as though he has still managed to keep his life intact and somewhat similar to the regular person’s. No matter what comes at him, he always seems to take it in stride. This is his story…
Well I grew up in a middle class neighborhood on the south side of Columbus with 11 brothers and sisters and then my mom and dad. My dad was a hardworking guy, never made much money. He just tried to take care of us kids and I pretty much learned how to work hard from my dad. He had two or three jobs a lot of times, so it was pretty hectic. My dad, either my mom or my dad, were probably the most influential people in my life. My dad probably more because he worked so hard and struggled so much to support all 12 kids and to put food on the table. It was so hard for him, I think, he drank a little bit too much so he had trouble with that for a number of years and I learned that you really can mix drinking that much with families. I looked up to my dad for all his hard work and I could learn some other things from his bad habits, but I learned that the good and the bad from my dad.
I pretty much started working by the time I was 10 years old. My family had a paper route that was kind of passed down through the boys of the family. I probably had that job from the time when I was 10 probably till I was 15 in high school; we just got other jobs so probably for about five years. I then worked at my school to help earn my families tuition that was then only like $400 a year but it seemed like a lot more because you were only making $1.50 an hour or something.
Around that time we got interrupted because some lady wanted to talk to him. He wasn’t so happy about that. Once that was over we then started talking about how he moved up here and started a business…
Well…my brother in-law opened up a market right after I got out of high school and I worked there for 9 ½ years just learning the business about how you treat people and how you just try and give a fair price and a decent product so they’ll come to you instead of going to a major store like Lawson’s or whatever. Pretty soon after that someone mentioned to me that I should try and open up a store in the northwest part of Columbus. I thought it would be hard to do, but after the persuasion of my father in-law and my wife I finally decided to give it a try. When I first started off up here all I wanted to do was survive. I didn’t know with the Dairy Mart next to me, and a drive thru on the other side, and me being the third wheel, I didn’t know if it was big enough for all three of us but I knew that I put everything I had, every little bit of money I saved, into this. We even put the money from my wedding into this. We tried to get a $10000 dollar loan from the bank but they turned us down. I asked the land lord if he’d let me slide for a few months just so we could get started here, and he said it would be alright. I finally opened up about three weeks after I was supposed to. I opened up about halfway through the day and I think we did 300 some dollars. The second day we did like $900 and I knew from that point on that everything was gonna be alright.
After we finished talking about starting out I then asked him about how an average day at work goes and what he enjoys most about his business.
Well, I use to go to market about three times a week. I’d wake up at four and go out to the airport and I’d pick out the produce I wanted and then bring it back here in my truck and unload it all. After that I balance my registers. My first 10 years I didn’t have the lottery so I only had one register to balance. I’d count the money and make sure everything, you know, was balanced. I would then open at seven. My first number of years her I opened and closed. Open at seven in the morning and close by 10:30 at night. When I would drive home I’d fall asleep driving most nights. I just couldn’t keep my eyes open, people would say you can’t work 100 hours a week. Well, back then I was pretty much working 100 hours a week easily. People say you can’t work that much but if you add up the week when you open and work 15 hours a day, 7 days a week, and go out to market three times a week as well, you can add up the hours pretty quickly.
I enjoy seeing the people that come in my store every day, that gets to be like family. Like the TV show Cheers, people just like coming to that place and you see so many of the same people every day or every other day, you just get to be like a family. It’s also nice getting along with your workers as well. I opened Eckel’s when I was around 25 ½ and most of the guys that work for me now are between probably 18 and 28. They just get to be like my kids so I enjoy that. I enjoy watching them, grow up and learn, and help them out. I want to be a helper; I just don’t want to be a boss. Just kind of be a friend and get along with them and have fun with them. I just want my store to be more of a family store.
We were interrupted again after this. After he was done with whatever it was he started talking about his experiences with college…
Well, you know, growing up I always wanted to go to college cause my dad didn’t go and I wanted to go to college. I could’ve gone for free; I wrestled in high school and had an opportunity to get a partial scholarship there and all the rest would be paid for. I just decided not to go, I probably should’ve. I wish to this day but, I just had an opportunity to work hard. I worked as many 60 some hour weeks I could just to start having money. I wanted to buy a car first and that got me started. One thing just led to another. But, if I had could go back and change anything I’d definitely go to college and get an education because now that I got three kids and one just graduated from college and I have to more in college. It was important to me that they were going to get an education. I never had ambitions of them running the store because this is no easy way to make a living when you’re working Friday’s, Saturdays, and Sunday’s and everybody else is out there with their families having fun. Get them through college, and I think the main body of my work would be done. If you raise your kids to be contributing adults to society in a good manner and to get their educations, there’s probably nothing more to me than that. I don’t think I was successful for a while without a college education, it’s tough. I don’t know how I made that decision.
To me the American dream is being able to support your family, have a house to live in, and get your kids through college, like I said before, and be good citizens. I’m getting close to accomplishing those; I’m still trying to hang on to the married life. I’m getting close but I still got two more kids to get through college, but to me that’s the American dream. Eventually, by the time I’m 60, I won’t have to work anymore. I would’ve put in enough time and gathered enough assets through my real estate that I never have to work again.
After talking about some serious topics I decided to throw a curve at him and ask him what he thought were some of the funniest experiences he’s had to deal with. Like with customers or employees. Since I started working with him about a year ago I have been in some pretty sticking situations that I hoped he would elaborate on but he didn’t. Some pretty shady stuff tends to go down there a lot it seems. Like, just last week we had a situation with a lady being somewhat of a crack whore, I guess. I’ve also been involved personally with someone getting caught smoking crack in the cooler while I was there, and I’ve also had to deal with a gambling addict just to name a few.
Well, there is a lot of funny things that have happened here. I came in one time and had a high school kid and an adult, that was 25, and I looked around on the counter and there was some glasses of beer sitting around in Styrofoam cups, and they didn’t expect me to stop in. Like, here is a high school student that’s not even allowed to slice on the meat slicer and they are drinking beer with this 25 year old guy. So that was one of them but I told these guys I don’t have a license to drink here in the store. That would just kill me when people would drink in my store. So they would go fishing, and they would always take a twelve-pack and go fishing. Well, I didn’t care what they did out there, just as long as the oldest guy bough the beer or whatever. Then they thought it would be funny to come in here and hide all the beer cans here in my store. They’d hide some back in the cooler, under the deli, so I’d think they’d be drinking it in here, but they always thought that was the funniest thing. That and the April Fools last year when Mike thought it would be funny to put on my sign that we had a sewage backup and that Eckel’s would be closed tomorrow because of it, and underneath it say April Fools. I walked in that morning and didn’t even see the sign; it was right on the outside of my building, on the big reader board. Well, I didn’t see it. It was up there part of the day. Well, I didn’t see it and I didn’t find it that funny at all either. And then they switched around all my deli signs to say something different like chocolate pudding was on the bologna, I didn’t notice that all day either. So everything we had in the deli was either tapioca pudding, chocolate pudding, potato salad, German potato salad, or something else and all my signs were mixed up and they thought that would be funny as heck but I really didn’t think it was that funny. That was a couple of things. Little things like that, they thought were more funny than me.
After that I thought I’d get serious again for the last question and I decided to ask him why he has become so successful in life coming from such a humble background and what he plans on doing in the future
I’m only successful because I have been able to take care of my family. I’ve never taken the easy road. Everything I’ve done, growing up it seems, I’ve taken the hard road instead of the easy road, not that college would be the easy road. It’s just if you didn’t have the money you weren’t gonna get it. Am I successful? I guess you can say just raising your kids and taking care of them, and in the future what do I want to do? I don’t know, I think in the next eight years or so either sell this place to somebody that I think can appreciate making a living off or it or hire somebody to run it, take it easy for a change. It’s probably been 10, 11, 12 years since I’ve had a week off. I did take 4 days off for the Ohio State National Championship game, but that’s the last four days in a row I’ve had off. That’s hard. You grow up and not take your kids on vacation like most other people. That’s not easy you know. They did play baseball all summer long so I like being on the baseball field with them. When I’d get off work I’d coach them a lot. Go out on the field and just enjoy that. That was our enjoyment. I don’t think my children really realize what they missed. Of course, sometimes they go on vacation with the friends, and they taken a couple of trips with the in-laws and my wife, while I stayed here. So that was kind of hard, but overall, hopefully, everything goes good and things don’t turn out to bad or anything like that where I won’t be able to retire at 60 years old but I hope to be done when I’m 60 years old I guess.
So I guess you can say that he’s been pretty successful with his life based on where he’s come from and what he’s had to go through. I’m sure there is more to his story than just this but he’s one not to tell you the whole story, so I don’t know. I had a fun time getting to know more about him though. He also enjoyed it as well. He thought it was kind of funny that I would choose a guy like him because it seems like he doesn’t really pay that much attention to what all he’s accomplished in life. I don’t think he really will until he retires. Who knows when that will be?
Thats really interesting id like to meet him
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