The crash occurred in the early morning hours of August 21st last year. (Courtesy Jeff Sussman)
Jeff Sussman’s gas station business went up in flames last year.
Literally.
In the early morning hours of August 21, he rolled over in bed and checked his phone to see a string of missed calls and texts from employees. He called back.
“A drunk driver hit a gas pump, knocked it into the station and started a fire,” one employee told him. “I’m there now, and it’s pretty bad.”
“So, I quickly got dressed and went down there, and my responses were something along the lines of: ‘holy s***,” Sussman recalls.
The property at 2300 E. 6th Ave., on the border of Cherry Creek and Country Club, was severely damaged. But Sussman always planned to rebuild. One of his employees changed the property’s sign to read “Crispy at edges, but not done yet.”
Sussman submitted plans to Denver to reconstruct the three-pump Conoco station last month.
“It’s certainly been, no pun intended, a big hit,” Sussman said. “But we’ve operated pretty conservatively. We could take a hit and work our way through the insurance process.”
Sussman stands in front of his damaged gas station. To the right is all that remains of the pump hit by the driver. (Matt Geiger/BusinessDen)
Gas stations typically have a failsafe installed that shuts off the flow of gas to the pump if it’s hit. But in the Conoco’s case, Susman said, the driver was going so fast that the impact pushed the pump into the building, and ignited what little gasoline was inside of it at the time.
The damages extend “well into the seven figures,” Sussman said. The cost of the renovations and repairs are still being determined.
Niles Caine, a 26-year-old Denverite, was charged with careless driving and driving under the influence after failing a field sobriety test on the scene, records obtained from the District Attorney’s office show. Caine had no prior convictions, and the case is still pending.
The business used to house two bays for servicing things like brakes, batteries and oil changes. But Sussman wants to replace that with a 1,300-square-foot retail building, believing the convenience store will bring in more money per square foot than the automotive services.
“It’s hard sometimes to pre-order enough parts, because with a store like that, you don’t just have a big parts inventory … it’s a slower volume than C-store customers that come in and buy a couple Red Bulls and a beef jerky,” Sussman said.
He added that inflation and rising labor costs have also put the squeeze on him, prompting a rethinking of the business model at 6th and York. His family has owned the station there for roughly 35 years.
“Most of what you guys have printed about restaurants, applies to the fuel business,” he said. “Rising labor costs, rising services costs, snow plowing, landscape — anything that relies on labor — has gone up dramatically.”
Inside the store after the incident. (Courtesy Jeff Sussman)
There’s no firm timeline in place for rebuilding, but Sussman said it will be up “as soon as we can,” pending Denver’s permit review process. In the meantime, he has placed the roughly five employees that worked there in other gas stations he owns around town.
“I had a bunch of outsiders say we ought to just bulldoze it and start all the way over. And between all the assessments of the damage, the damage was really to the front side, and it looks like there’s an opportunity to effectively remodel it,” he said.
Sussman owns 10 gas stations alongside his father Meyer, through their company G&S Oil Products. That business has been around in Denver for roughly 40 years. His dad has been in the industry since the 1960s, when he bought a gas station at 14th Avenue and Peoria Street that he worked at while attending the University of Denver. Sussman, meanwhile, grew up in Greenwood Village and went to the University of Colorado Boulder.
This isn’t the first time someone has hit one of Sussman’s properties. Earlier last year, a driver in a Dodge Challenger crashed into a pump at his Centennial location, knocking it over before driving off. The Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office said the incident cost the gas station $30,000 in damage. And a decade ago, Sussman said, he had someone crash into a shopping center he owned in Parker.
“I don’t know why they always hit gas pumps,” he quipped. “It’s like the movies.”
“The circumstances suck, but we are excited about the opportunity to put a much better asset, a much better service to this whole area.”
The crash occurred in the early morning hours of August 21st last year. (Courtesy Jeff Sussman)
Jeff Sussman’s gas station business went up in flames last year.
Literally.
In the early morning hours of August 21, he rolled over in bed and checked his phone to see a string of missed calls and texts from employees. He called back.
“A drunk driver hit a gas pump, knocked it into the station and started a fire,” one employee told him. “I’m there now, and it’s pretty bad.”
“So, I quickly got dressed and went down there, and my responses were something along the lines of: ‘holy s***,” Sussman recalls.
The property at 2300 E. 6th Ave., on the border of Cherry Creek and Country Club, was severely damaged. But Sussman always planned to rebuild. One of his employees changed the property’s sign to read “Crispy at edges, but not done yet.”
Sussman submitted plans to Denver to reconstruct the three-pump Conoco station last month.
“It’s certainly been, no pun intended, a big hit,” Sussman said. “But we’ve operated pretty conservatively. We could take a hit and work our way through the insurance process.”
Sussman stands in front of his damaged gas station. To the right is all that remains of the pump hit by the driver. (Matt Geiger/BusinessDen)
Gas stations typically have a failsafe installed that shuts off the flow of gas to the pump if it’s hit. But in the Conoco’s case, Susman said, the driver was going so fast that the impact pushed the pump into the building, and ignited what little gasoline was inside of it at the time.
The damages extend “well into the seven figures,” Sussman said. The cost of the renovations and repairs are still being determined.
Niles Caine, a 26-year-old Denverite, was charged with careless driving and driving under the influence after failing a field sobriety test on the scene, records obtained from the District Attorney’s office show. Caine had no prior convictions, and the case is still pending.
The business used to house two bays for servicing things like brakes, batteries and oil changes. But Sussman wants to replace that with a 1,300-square-foot retail building, believing the convenience store will bring in more money per square foot than the automotive services.
“It’s hard sometimes to pre-order enough parts, because with a store like that, you don’t just have a big parts inventory … it’s a slower volume than C-store customers that come in and buy a couple Red Bulls and a beef jerky,” Sussman said.
He added that inflation and rising labor costs have also put the squeeze on him, prompting a rethinking of the business model at 6th and York. His family has owned the station there for roughly 35 years.
“Most of what you guys have printed about restaurants, applies to the fuel business,” he said. “Rising labor costs, rising services costs, snow plowing, landscape — anything that relies on labor — has gone up dramatically.”
Inside the store after the incident. (Courtesy Jeff Sussman)
There’s no firm timeline in place for rebuilding, but Sussman said it will be up “as soon as we can,” pending Denver’s permit review process. In the meantime, he has placed the roughly five employees that worked there in other gas stations he owns around town.
“I had a bunch of outsiders say we ought to just bulldoze it and start all the way over. And between all the assessments of the damage, the damage was really to the front side, and it looks like there’s an opportunity to effectively remodel it,” he said.
Sussman owns 10 gas stations alongside his father Meyer, through their company G&S Oil Products. That business has been around in Denver for roughly 40 years. His dad has been in the industry since the 1960s, when he bought a gas station at 14th Avenue and Peoria Street that he worked at while attending the University of Denver. Sussman, meanwhile, grew up in Greenwood Village and went to the University of Colorado Boulder.
This isn’t the first time someone has hit one of Sussman’s properties. Earlier last year, a driver in a Dodge Challenger crashed into a pump at his Centennial location, knocking it over before driving off. The Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office said the incident cost the gas station $30,000 in damage. And a decade ago, Sussman said, he had someone crash into a shopping center he owned in Parker.
“I don’t know why they always hit gas pumps,” he quipped. “It’s like the movies.”
“The circumstances suck, but we are excited about the opportunity to put a much better asset, a much better service to this whole area.”
