GAUSE, Texas (KRHD) — Cousins, Phillip Rasco and Kane Coats, are taking up their new ownership of their family store, Coats Grocery, in Gause.
- The store has served the community for nearly 100 years.
- It was originally owned by cousins Phillip Rasco and Kane Coats great-grandparents and grandparents.
- The cousins are hoping to find more success with the business after taking over.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Car after car pass by the Coats family grocery store in Gause, likely not realizing they're bypassing a nearly 100-year old store, seemingly frozen in time
"We've been here forever," Co-owner Phillip Rasco said.
Now, a new generation, Kane Coats, and his cousin, Philip Rasco, are taking over, and they're set on preserving its century-old legacy.
"It was always a fear for us if we lost what the family has built up over generations, but after our grandparents passed, we really, we didn't see other options," Rasco said.
Kane and Phillip's great-grandparents opened the store in the 1930s.
It was then passed on to their grandparents who ran it for about 60 years.
"When I graduated high school, I worked here for a few years and never really looked at it, you know, as my future," Coats said.
"It's a lot more work than we anticipated, but it's a lot more of a labor of love," Rasco said.
How has the business lasted this long?
The cousins tell me they owe it to the community.
"There's a lot of big families that have, you know, been around this area for a long time. We got a lot of really loyal customers," Coats said.
Customers like Bennie Swift who's been coming to the shop about 75 years.
"They still keep you from having to go across the bridge to another town if you want something real quick," Swift said. "We can't be without Coats. They've been there too long."
They're hoping to keep this community bond alive.
"We just wanna try to build it up, make a successful business," Coats said.
"So we're not really sure how far we take this, but that's the journey. We're trying to see how far we can go," Rasco said.
