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Tampa auto body shop is family's legacy

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Dixie Paint & Body Shop has been a fixture at 15th Street and 28th Avenue in east Tampa since 1926.

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JOSE PATINO GIRONA

jpatino@tampatrib.com

Published: June 30, 2009

TAMPA - Angelo Traina Jr.'s life always has been centered at 15th Street and 28th Avenue.

That is where Angelo's grandfather, Italian immigrant Giuseppe Traina, helped start a body shop business for his sons in 1926.

Traina's father, Angelo Traina, took over Dixie Paint & Body Shop when his older brothers moved away.

For more than two decades now, Angelo Traina Jr., 58, has been president of the business that is a mainstay for the family, customers and the neighborhood.

"I just loved it," said Traina, sitting behind the desk in his office. "I always liked it. Dealing with customers and fixing cars.

"Some people dread Monday morning. I don't," he said. "I like helping out, feeling like I'm getting something accomplished."

Each morning Traina meets his staff of eight — and sometimes regulars from the neighborhood — toward the rear of the shop. They share a spread of Cuban bread and American coffee. Traina's father started the tradition 30 years ago, and it continues as a convenience for workers and a way to perpetuate the shop's family atmosphere.

These days, Traina handles customers and paperwork, completes transactions, orders parts and inspects repaired vehicles before they leave the lot. He doesn't remove dents and paint cars as much as he did in the past, but he still will help hang the hood of a car, install a door or do other jobs around the shop.

Old-timers and longtime customers occasionally stop by to chat.

"It's like people like to go to car shows to see what's going on," Traina said. "People like to come here to see what's going on in the body business."

Traina's connection to the lot is lengthy. He began working there at age 10. It is the only place he has worked.

He lived on the property with his parents and his sister, Belinda. His parents, Angelo and Mary, had a trailer on the lot and lived there until 1998 when they had a home built down the street from the business. His mother, Mary, 81, still lives there.

Traina moved out in 1973 when he married.

In the 1950s and 1960s, he recalled, an ice man came to the shop every day and loaded a block of ice into a cooler. Shop workers added water, so they would have cold water to drink.

He remembered a deviled crab vendor coming to the business, riding a bicycle and carrying deviled crabs in glass containers.

He also recalled the fire in 1974, caused by an electrical short in a compressor. The family had no insurance, but a contractor rebuilt the business in about a year. Meanwhile, Traina said, employees kept the business going by working in two sheds at the rear of the shop.

After Traina completed his daily classes at Hillsborough High School, he worked at the shop sanding cars, fixing small dents and learning to paint while his buddies bagged groceries at a Kash 'N Karry supermarket.

He graduated from Hillsborough High in 1969 and never considered any career other than working at the body shop.

"I just love cars," Traina said. "I grew up in the business with my parents in it. I didn't see myself doing anything else."

For J.B. Price, the business has been special, too.

Price, the shop's paint supervisor, walked into the shop on a Saturday in 1975, looking for work. He had experience as a mechanic.

Price spoke with Traina's father, who said he didn't have a job opening at the time.

As Price began to walk away, Traina's dad told Price to come back on Monday and he would find him something to do. Price showed up and worked washing and doing preparation work on cars.

Price said he had a good feeling that first day but didn't think he would stay 34 years.

"His father became a second father," said Price, 58. "He treated me like a son.

"He [Angelo Traina Jr.] is a good person," Price said. "His father was a good kind man, and he took after his father. This [business] is what they had, and this is what they love. His father loved it, and he loves it as well."

Traina's son, Jason Traina, said he and his brother, Jay, are interested in continuing the business once they both retire from Tampa Fire Rescue.

They like the established business's tradition and previously worked at the shop.

"I think for any business to be around since the '20s is pretty amazing, especially nowadays," said Jason Traina, 35, a driver engineer with Tampa Fire Rescue.

He said his father probably will remain at the shop for the rest of his life.

"He loves the shop," Jason Traina said. "It is in his blood. He loves it. Just like my grandfather."
Angelo Traina Jr. agrees with his son's assessment about retirement.

"When I die," Traina said. "Just like my father. He was 89."

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