If you usually visit H&R Auto for routine maintenance on your car, be sure to stop in before this summer, when the repair shop will likely close its doors.
After 30 years at 805 Hannah Avenue, H&R Auto Owner Larry Moskos sold the property to the Park District of Forest Park.
There are no immediate plans for the space, which may become an extension of the park district’s neighboring green space or be developed to create more indoor space.
The park district entered a contract to buy 805 Hannah Ave. from Moskos last May. In December 2024, they closed on the property. The sale’s contract allows H&R Auto to stay open for up to a year, leasing the space until Moskos closes up shop, likely in June.
Before then, Moskos will clean out the H&R Auto building, full of tools and spare parts.
“I want to do it methodically,” Moskos said about his winding down process.
As Moskos gears up to leave his business behind, he’s reflecting on the successes of his 30-year-long career at H&R Auto, most of which include making connections with locals.
“I’m going to miss the customers that I built a lot of relationships with over the years,” Moskos said.
He added that there’s at least 100 of his customers who have turned into good friends, that he “could call up and say, ‘let’s do dinner tonight.’”
Moskos said he’ll also miss his two employees, as well as those at Forest Park’s other local car repair shops, Forest Automotive and Action Transmission & Automotive.
While Moskos doesn’t know what he’ll do next, he said it won’t be retirement or involve cars.
“I like working,” he said. He added that he’ll likely spend more time with family and friends, plus riding his five motorcycles.
He said he knows one thing for sure: He’s staying in the western suburbs.
Moskos lives in Westchester and has spent all of his 69 years in the area. He said he’ll remain in the western suburbs for the rest of his life.
“Emotionally I couldn’t handle it, to move somewhere where I know no one,” he said.
H&R history
Moskos grew up in Oak Park, where he attended St. Bernardine’s. Before getting into car repair, Moskos sold Snap-on tools for 18 years across the western suburbs.
In 1987, Eddie Vince started what would become H&R Auto with one tow truck and three employees. Eight years later, Moskos joined him and, together, they bought the building at 805 Hannah Avenue and fixed it up as an auto repair shop.
Although H&R Auto now only does car repairs, towing services once made up half of its business. Moskos said the company stopped towing services around 2018 to ease the workload for him and his employees. Around that time, they towed about 1,000 cars a year, Moskos estimated.
Today, Moskos said he and his two employees repair about five cars a day.
Perhaps the biggest reason that Moskos’ small staff has such a large workload is because of a national shortage of auto technicians – which Moskos said is the biggest barrier for new auto repair shops to open.
According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, there will be over 67,000 job openings for auto technicians annually through 2032.
“Many of those openings are expected to result from the need to replace workers who transfer to different occupations or exit the labor force,” the Bureau said on its website.
“There’s a lot of attrition in this business,” Moskos said.
Expanding the park district
In March 2022, the park district bought the land to the west of H&R Towing, where the Pines Restaurant, Oak Leaf Lounge and Forest Park Foreign Car Repair once sat.
“We were obviously interested in the whole block,” the park district’s executive director Jackie Iovinelli told the Review in May about the length of Harrison Street, from Thomas Avenue to Hannah Avenue.
Although Moskos wasn’t quite ready to sell then, he said he’s now ready to step back from H&R Auto.
When the park district bought the land next to H&R Auto, its intention was to construct a new building there. But after the park district demolished the existing buildings, officials planted grass so the space didn’t look like a construction site while they waited for funding to start construction. They decided to leave the lot green.
“As soon as we started putting in the grass, we were like, ‘This is beautiful.’ We’ve had nothing but positive feedback from residents,” Iovinelli said. “The number-one request in the community has always been ‘open space.’”
Preserving this area was also one of the reasons the park district decided to expand the Roos Recreation Center, rather than building a facility on top of the open space.
But even with a Roos expansion, the park district requires more room for its day camp, which entertains kids after school and in the summer.
“We need indoor space, that’s the ultimate goal,” Iovinelli said, adding that the park district intends to keep the existing green space as-is.
Iovinelli said she’s not sure if the H&R Auto property will serve as more green space or if the park district will construct a new building there.
“The board continues to focus on fiscally responsible ways for additional indoor space while continuing to provide open space for recreation, health and wellness,” Iovinelli said earlier this month.
Moskos said that he can envision his property becoming an extension of the park district’s open space next door.
“Everyone loves green space,” he said. “You’ve got more dogs walking down there than people can imagine.”
Whatever comes next, the park district is patiently waiting for Moskos to say goodbye to H&R Auto, its customers and the peers he works with every day.
“We’re not in any hurry,” Iovinelli said. “We want to be a good neighbor.”
