Wieser sells Honda dealership

Talk to Jerry Wieser about his recent business deal and he sounds a bit circumspect.

"I'm not sure where the road will lead me at this point," he said. "I'm just going to get some R&R and see where the road takes me. I like the car business too much to get out of it completely. But you can't go on forever."

Last week, the longtime Cape Girardeau auto dealer sold Wieser Honda, a dealership he has been affiliated with in some manner for 41 years.

A banner quickly went up covering Wieser Honda with its new name: Cape Girardeau Honda.

"The deed is done," Wieser told me.

Wieser said he's not selling his other dealership -- Wieser Hyundai, which is on Siemers Drive, next to the Honda dealership. Wieser, 70, hopes his children will someday take over that store.

He's calling the selling of the Honda store "semiretirement."

"I've been thinking about it for quite a while," he said. "I figured I'd like to cut back on the workload a little bit. I'll be kind of semiretired but not really retired."

Now he's taking on the challenge of trying to build up the Hyundai store, which right now is smaller than Honda.

Wieser started out with Honda in 1965, just selling motorcycles. He got the car dealership in 1975.

"I guess I'll retire one of these days," he said. "But now we're just going to work to develop this store."

* The new owners: Meanwhile, the new owner of Honda is a group from Louisville, Ky., that also has a Honda dealership in Johnson City, Tenn. The group includes Tom Joseph, who is moving to Cape Girardeau to be the general manager, Scott and Raquel Joseph, Thomas A. Joseph and Joe Trujillo.

Tom Joseph said Honda had asked them to look at the Cape Girardeau dealership when it learned Wieser was interested in selling.

"We thought this market was the right size to have growth and to also maintain a high quality of service," Joseph said.

Joseph spent 20 years running a Toyota dealership in Louisville before his family opened a Honda dealership in June 2004.

Expect a few changes to the Honda dealership here: The new owners plan to add more service bays and expand the hours. Eventually, they hope to need more than the 40 employees they have now.

"We're looking to grow," he said.

* Mollies ... remodeling: That's what the sign on the door says. Rumors are swirling about the downtown Cape Girardeau restaurant, which closed its doors unexpectedly last week. Some downtown business owners have said that they've been told by the owners -- Mike Risch and Matt Tygett -- that it's closed and for sale. But the sign, which begins "Dear Mollie's customers," says that the establishment is closed "for a few weeks" for modeling and repairs. The sign says the restaurant and bar will reopen. But will Risch and Tygett still own it when and if it does?

I couldn't reach Tygett or Risch for comment.

* Kathy Swan -- activist at work: The August/September issue of My Business magazine features a lengthy piece about Cape Girardeau's Kathy Swan, who owns JCS/Tel-Link. The article, titled "Five Simple Ways to Speak Up for Your Small Business," includes myriad comments from Swan about getting to know your lawmakers.

This is nothing to sneeze at. My Business is the official magazine of NFIB, the National Federation of Independent Business, the largest and most influential small-business association in the United States.

The article explains how Swan keeps the conversation going with her state and federal lawmakers.

"For the longevity and health of our small business, we have an obligation to be involved with our lawmakers," said Swan, who is a county co-chair for U.S. Sen. Jim Talent's reelection campaign. "Time is a very scarce resource for business owners, but you can't afford not to take the time to get involved."

For a look at the full article, check out my blog at www.semissourian.com.

* Ole Hickory Pits gets New Yorker nod: Our Southeast Missouri folks are getting a lot of positive press these days. The July 31 issue of The New Yorker includes a vague mention of a local business.

In its "Tables for Two" blurb, Dave Knight's Ole Hickory Pits was referred to in passing, though the company name was never mentioned. The short article on page 12 is about a new New York restaurant called Rack and Soul.

In the article by Kate Julian, it mentions that John Wheeler, of the Mississippi barbecue team Natural Born Grillers, hauled a 2,700-pound pit smoker from Cape Girardeau to Morningside Heights, home of this new restaurant. The folks at Ole Hickory Pits confirmed that Wheeler, the honorary "pit master" at the new restaurant, was a regular customer of Ole Hickory Pits.

Owner David Knight said: "John's a good customer our ours from down in South Haven, Miss. He is very active in the competitive barbecue world."

He agreed with the gist of the article, that pit smokers are becoming more prevalent.

"The reason is that people's tastes are becoming more sophisticated and they can really tell the difference between real barbecue and what in the past masqueraded as barbecue."

Scott Moyers is the business editor of the Southeast Missourian. Send your comments, business news, information or questions to "Biz Buzz," 301 Broadway, Cape Girardeau, Mo., 63702-0699, or e-mail them to smoyers@semissourian.com or call (573) 335-6611, extension 137.