Driven by Word of Mouth: He Does Sales and Service at Keating Shop

Name: Falon Tablas

Position: Service manager and sales at Don Keating Used Cars

Overview: Tablas has many roles. As part of a five-person mostly family operation, everyone does a bit of everything. But Tablas, 32, is the service manager and does sales at Don Keating Used Cars, which combines an auto service and repair facility with a small lot of used automobiles.

Tablas has worked at Don Keating for 13 years, since his stepfather, Rick Bucklew, bought the place. In general, Tablas makes sure the service operation is running smoothly, makes appointments with customers, orders all parts, gives service estimates and works with customers looking to buy a car. On occasion, he’ll help the shop’s two mechanics when they need an extra hand. “We all do different things,” Tablas says. “We wear many hats around here.”

History: Don Keating Used Cars—the business kept the name of its former owner—is on La Mesa Boulevard near the intersection with Fourth Street in what at one time was an old Richfield gas station, set back off the street from the route of what was old Highway 80 (before Interstate 8).

Tablas says the station went in about 1967, and inside the office and garage it retains the feel of an old-time full-service station that once housed white-clad attendants with bow ties.

Where are you? Even residents of La Mesa are surprised a full-service garage and auto sales business exists in The Village. Because it’s a bit set back, amidst the shops and restaurants, it can be overlooked even by folks who have been around a while. “A lot of people don’t know we’re here,” Tablas says. “They’ll call and say ‘Where?’ They may drive by it all the time, but they’re just looking at other things.” They work on all makes and models, and sell all types of cars—and will help customers find specific cars, as well.

Family affair: It’s a tight-knit group, with Bucklew, the manager/president; his wife, Janice Gonya (Falon’s mother); head technician Dennis Gonya (Falon’s brother); and Gary Sweeney, a technician (and nonfamily member) who joined the shop about four months ago.

On a recent weekday morning, the group was trading jokes and jibes as they did their work. Tablas says the family dynamic can be great and grating at the same time. “We can all be stubborn,” he says, smiling. “Different personalities. Sometimes we can get carried away and people can get upset.”

Bucklew says because it’s a small operation, their personal approach is vital. “We have a very basic mission statement,” Bucklew says: “Satisfy the customer.” The past few years have been challenging, says Bucklew, “but the economy is adjusting. It can be self-healing.”

The  “jinx”: Tablas’ brother, Dennis, knows that Falon sometimes brings out the worst in cars, and uses it to his advantage. If a car he’s working on won’t replicate the problem its owner has brought it in for, he’ll let Falon test-drive it. “We have a joke that I have real bad luck on cars,” Falon says. “If it’s going to break, it’s going to break if I drive it. He’ll say, ‘OK, Falon, why don’t you take it out and it’ll do it (have the problem).’ ”

Away from work: Tablas works a six-day week, Monday through Saturday, and opens the shop each morning. So what does he do on the seventh day? The goal is nothing. “I like to be lazy,” he says.

In La Mesa: Tablas has been in the La Mesa area since he was about 12 or 13, after he and his family moved around, from Dallas to Florida and Orange County. He now owns a house in La Mesa.

Quotable:  “I’ve learned you have to spend time with people. You can’t brush them off,” Tablas says. “If one person gets upset, they have a mouth, and they’ll tell everybody. But if people are satisfied they’ll tell their friends, and it will spread by word of mouth.”