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In 1971, the bar was added to the café side. This is when Jim Rother would be brought into the fold to run the restaurant until he died of cancer. In 1976, the first addition was built to the restaurant and in 1981, a second addition was built. Ray and Arlys Pillar of Faribault were hired in the mid to late 70’s to run the restaurant and did so very successfully for a long time. When the Pillars left, the elder John Kummer resumed control of the daily operations.

In 1982, the full-service auto garages were officially converted over to the self-serve station. Other businesses had been attached to The Point prior to the remodel in 1982. A sausage and cheese shop run by Al Langenfeld, of course, Grandpa Kummer ran his veterinary business for there until he passed away in the early 70’s.

So how does Mr. Kummer feel about this changing of property? “It’s mixed emotions, right? We grew up there. We all worked there. My oldest sister started at 55 cents an hour, I think I was fortunate enough to start at $2.25 an hour, but we all did everything there was to do, from washing dishes, to cleaning, to bartending, to waiting tables, you name it,” Kummer said.

“You have a work ethic if it’s your own business. We all did it. It’s the way we all made a living,” he added.

The words he was saying were trying to maintain an up beat presentation, but it was clear the emotional attachment he had to the history of the property, it was his families livelihood for three generations, and there is a certain level of pride that should be part of that. In its prime, The Point was far enough away from St. Paul that is could be its own destination. People would make plans to visit The Point. As we progressed further into the 21st century, that destination factor decreased. “It was in a good spot at the right time, for a long time, “Kummer said. “It was a great run, it really was.”

The sale of the property had been contemplated for some time and it the decision was finally made to sell the property to SSG. SSG, Self-Serve Gas, is a local company that was leasing the station portion for nearly 15 years. At the time of the purchase agreement, they owned 32 other Holiday branded locations around the region. SSG had some solid plans for the property that Kummer was comfortable with, but they wanted roughly a year between the agreement and the purchase. This is where things became muddy. John’s father began to develop dementia that progressed very quickly, so the family did what they could to help advance the sale as his father originally wanted. Between the time of the agreement to sell and the actual time to sign the papers, the owners of SSG had sold all 32 of their other locations to a publicly traded entity, Cross America. This forced the Kummers to deal with the new company which then delayed the sale an additional 6-9 months. The sale did ultimately happen with Cross America, but shortly after they bought the property, Cross America was purchased by a larger company out of Canada.

The restaurant held a farewell party for the Kummers and staff on July 18th, 2015, on Monday July 20th, 2015, the final Closed sign was on the door. The building was torn down late August, early September of 2020, five years after the restaurant closed. Why? The involvement of two different companies in the purchase of The Point had initially delayed the development of the property by nearly two years, what would the addition of the third company do?

Contractually, there were a few years that the gas station needed to remain branded as a Holiday. “Cross America wasn’t a Holiday brand, so they were just gonna put up with until then. They sold it to the parent company that owns Casey’s,” Kummer said.

Dare we say it? BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE! In the good stories, there is always a twist of some kind. The Third company just sat on it, as it was for a few years then somehow, Holiday ended up getting it back. The details on that are unknown to Kummer, but he did know that the current owners, the one developing the property, is the parent company of Holiday, which is Ashland Oil. In roughly four or five years, a property owned by one family for 80 plus years changed hands officially three times.

The saddest part of that four to five year chain of events is not knowing if the properties history carried through to the fourth, err, third owner. Had SSG purchased it and kept it, there is a great likelihood that SSG would have followed suit with other new Holiday builds in the region and given a nod to the local history of the property. A placard telling the story of the Kummers, pictures of the various stages of the building leading up to the shiny new building. Yes, business is business, and they don’t HAVE to do something like that, but when a company knows of that history, they often do what they can to say to the community, we get it, we respect it and we’ll show you we respect it because this is important to the area, which Holiday is normally great at doing. With the ownership changing hands so many times in such a short period, there is a possibility that Holiday simply does not know. The hope here is that Holiday was made aware and they have done something to give the Kummers that tip of the cap.

Where does that leave the state of the property? With a shiny new building! The old property had four gas pumps and two diesel pumps. The new property is set up much better for not only automobile traffic, but the larger, commercial vehicle traffic as well. The building was a complete scrape and rebuild which means the inside will be awesome too.

The last communication sent out regarding the opening of the store was November 5th. The target at that time was to open by December 15th. Given this is 2020, that plan may have had to change. The good news is, as of December 6th, the sign on the door still says December 15th, so that is a great sign that the open is going to happen soon.

If you are looking for an employment opportunity, they are hiring, visit www.holidaystationstores.com and click on careers for more information.