Shop View: Topel's Service Center, Inc.

Sept. 1, 2023

September marks the diamond anniversary of Topel's Service Center in Lake Mills, Wisconsin. The shop was founded in 1948 by Clifford Topel and passed on to his son, Dan, and daughter-in-law, Tara in 2003.

Chris Jones

Shop Name: Topel's Service Center, Inc.

Owners: Dan & Tara Topel

Location: Lake Mills, Wisconsin

Staff Size: 14

Shop Size: 14,400 square feet

Number of Bays: 10

Average Monthly Car Count: 203

Annual Revenue: $1.4 million

September marks the diamond anniversary of Topel's Service Center in Lake Mills, Wisconsin. The shop was founded in 1948 by Clifford Topel and passed on to his son, Dan, and daughter-in-law, Tara in 2003. The senior Topel continued to work around the shop until he was 94. In 2020, the Topels moved out of the original shop (4,500 square feet, six bays) and into a large, custom-built, modern facility (14,400 square feet) on August 4, 2022.

Open Floor Plan

The waiting area at Topel's Service Center.

Once inside the shop, guests enter a lounge area complete with a TV and fireplace. To the right of the lounge is a well-lit space for guests to work or study while waiting for their vehicles. There’s an office carved out for Topel's administrative assistant, Dana, and a central kiosk for their service advisor, Jake. Topel says she doesn’t jive with the idea of placing an advisor behind a desk, so they don’t. “I believe more in the kiosk system; less between the (advisor and) customer,” Topel says.

Between the shop and the waiting area is a conference space. It’s primarily used for training. Team means everything to the Topel's and they’re committed to education, requiring 100 hours of training for their techs. They also use the space to do lunch and learns, or for meeting or eating.

Also on the premises is a retail parts store. The Topels leased the space to a parts dealer who was in an antiquated building in town and in need of a better location. “It’s also open to the public,” Topel says.

Making a Shop of the Future

The interior of the shop is spacious and well-lit with seven fully or partially glass-paneled overhead doors for natural light. The shop has heated floors throughout the building, large fans for air circulation and dedicated space for ADAS calibration. “We knew that we wanted to be able to have ADAS calibrations. We have a technician who was watching everything and learning everything he could about it up until the point when we moved in, and then we got trained through Autel,” Topel says. “And we have a body shop in town here who's really giving us a lot of work.”