Family-owned auto body shop still open after fire

The owners of Rice Auto Body in Hanover Township are saying customers can still expect full services from the 55-year-old family business after a fire destroyed the front building on the property on Monday, March 30.

Ryan Rice, co-owner of Rice Auto Body and son of original owner Jim Rice, said he believes the fire broke out sometime around 5:15 p.m.

According to Hanover Township Fire Chief Fred Stitsinger, the fire started at the building’s rear dumpsters and spread to the main structure. A natural gas line was also broken, which contributed to the fire, he said, although it still wasn’t clear if this was the source on April 2.

Stitsinger said the fire burned for around four or five hours, and the main building and three cars inside were a total loss. One firefighter sustained a slight injury, he said.

In addition to the three cars that were lost, Ryan Rice said all of the car keys in the building were also lost.

“Every customer has just been absolutely amazing,” he said, adding that a couple body shops in the area were ready to jump in and help right after the fire. 

A Facebook post by the shop on the evening of March 30 about the fire received almost 1,000 interactions from community members, including many comments expressing well wishes to the business.

“We’ve not had any issues. The support from everybody around – the businesses around, the people around – I mean, it’s just been unreal,” Ryan Rice said.

On Thursday, April 2, Ryan Rice said the business was still “fully operational,” and any work that was being done in the front building, which originally included six car service bays, was moved to another building near the back of the property. A few other buildings on the property, including the paint shop, also remain undamaged.

Within a week, Ryan Rice said the business is expecting to be back to the level of efficiency it was before the fire. Once it is given approval to tear down the building, he said they will rebuild. He said insurance is covering the cost of damages caused by the fire.

What the Rice family really lost in the fire was the memories associated with the main building.

“All of us worked out of that building,” Jim Rice said, referring to his three sons, two grandsons and five other full-time workers. “That was our place. We were there every day.”

The main building began as a single-car garage, which Jim Rice opened at 2362 Millville Oxford Road around 1970. He and his wife raised their three sons, Ryan, Randy and Rick, who would later work at the shop, in the house next to the property that now serves as a store front.

Jim Rice said he saved enough money to add onto the garage first in 1973 and again in the late 1970s. Eventually, he was able to build a paint shop and two other buildings at the back of the property.

Today, the shop remains a family business, co-owned by Jim Rice’s three sons, one of whom lives just across the street.

His favorite memory from the original shop is a tricolored 1981 Pontiac Trans Am he built with his sons which placed second in the International Show Car Association competition of 1989 against 2,500 other cars.

Besides that, Jim Rice said he remembers “all the great people” he’s met and helped alongside his family in that shop over the years.

“This is a small community,” Jim Rice said. “People won’t come back if you don’t treat them right. … That's important for us, because this is a family business.”

Overall, Jim Rice said the shop remains positive about business moving forward.

“Everybody’s working,” he said. “Paint shop’s ready. Frame racks are ready. All the office work is all intact. We’re ready.”