Mattituck native opens up garage at former East End Auto shop
Mattituck native Todd Davey is the type of guy that likes spending weekends helping friends and relatives change their oil and minor repairs on their cars.
And now he’s hoping to do the same for the rest of the community, on a full-time basis.
On Monday, Mr. Davey fulfilled his life-long dream of owning an auto repair shop when he opened North Fork Garage in the building located behind Ted’s Auto Body in Peconic.
The space was previous occupied by longtime North Fork mechanic Mike Borkowski, who closed up his shop at East End Auto Repair in January and retired to North Carolina.
“Back in December, my sister saw the article in The Suffolk Times about Mike Borkowski retiring and leaving his Peconic auto repair shop behind and vacant,” Mr. Davey said this week. “She sent me the article with a text that read ‘this is your chance.’ When I walked into Mike’s old space for the first time, I immediately got nervous. I knew it was going to be my shop.”
Though this is Mr. Davey’s first time owning an auto repair shop, he has been in the business for more than a decade.
As a child, Mr. Davey spent his summers not at the beach but in his parents’ garage, tinkering with old trucks, ATVs, even lawnmowers – basically any automotive he could get his hands on, he said. He went on to graduate Toyota’s “T-TEN” technical training program and has spent the past 11 years working as a technician at both a European dealership and an independent shop.
“Once you have [Mr. Davey] fix one of your vehicles, you never want to use anybody but him,” said Mike Velys, Sr. Vice President of REVCO Electric, who has had Mr. Davey service his fleet of vans and trucks for the past several years and will be following him to his new shop. “He’s one of the most honest, hard-working, reliable and skillful guys I’ve met. He can diagnose and fix a problem that most other mechanics would miss.”
Mr. Davey lives in Riverhead with his wife, Rachael, and two sons, Wade and Cole. If North Fork Garage is successful, he plans to move farther east and pass his business down to his children.
“I want my boys to be able to spend time at the garage with me,” he said. “And if they’re interested, eventually take over. Wade is already taking apart his toy trucks and trying on my boots. I hope this will be the start of our family business.”
He also hopes to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor, Mike, and become a trusted fixture in the community.
“I hope to make Mike proud,” he said.
North Fork Garage is located at 37570 Route 25 in Peconic.
It will be open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on weekends by appointment.
