Garlic City Glass, the mom-and-pop store that provides service
others won’t
Lynn Laizure Noto chuckles when a customer asks how much glass costs. How do you begin to answer, she asks, rattling off a medley of questions.
Is it a picture frame or window? Single or double pane? Is it heat tempered? Does it have an aluminum frame? Depending on the “specs,” the price can range from $2 to $55 dollars a square foot. But customers don’t have to worry about getting overwhelmed when they call Garlic City Glass.
“We walk them through it on the phone,” said Noto, who co-owns the business with her husband Benji Noto. The couple prides themselves on a personal touch that keeps customers coming back for years.
“We’re the mom and pop store that doesn’t go by industry standards,” said Benji Noto. “We bend over backwards to see that our jobs are done right.”
Most larger glass companies, for instance, won’t even deal with customers who want less than 35 square feet of glass. No minimums apply when dealing with the Notos, who cut and install everything from custom shower doors to automotive glass to windows in new homes. Customers will typically pay $10 or more to replace glass in a picture frame, but they’re likely to walk out of Garlic City Glass without paying a cent (the Notos usually keep a spare stack of standard picture-frame glass handy).
No single day is the same at Garlic City Glass. In addition to scheduled installations, at any given moment a half-dozen people can converge on the store to replace picture frames, buy a mirror, or inquire about new shower doors. After browsing a small showroom customers can sit on park benches, flip through glass samples and chat with the Notos about their particular needs. It’s a different experience than Home Depot or Lowe’s.
Shelley Canario has worked with the Notos for more than a decade, calling on the couple to help with her own projects and for installations on homes she sells.
“I’ve always worked directly with Benji,” said Canario, a real estate agent with Coldwell Banker in Gilroy. “It’s his business so you’re going to get the quality that you want. He always takes good care of my clients as well as my own personal needs and I know they’re going to get the job done right. I trust him. Plus, he’s been in Gilroy all his life and it’s nice to be able to support those smaller businesses.”
The personal touch comes easy for a family with deep roots in the community. Benji Noto, 52, was born and raised in Gilroy, and Lynn, 53, moved to the city from Merced at the age of 6. The pair grew up a few doors down from each other but did not become friends until high school, when they began dating. They married a few years after graduating from Gilroy High School and have been together ever since.
Though he originally wanted to become a teacher, Benji ended up turning his first job out of high school into a lifelong career. He spent his first 10 years installing automotive glass, then later branched out into different varieties that he now cuts and installs at Garlic City Glass. In 1995, the couple decided to stake their own claim by starting a glass business in their garage. Today, they have five employees and a long list of customers, both old and new arrivals.
“I know that they are caring and take pride in their work and they are community oriented,” said Chris Filice, a childhood friend of Lynn and an employee for the nonprofit Garlic Festival Association. “They’ve been long-time volunteers, whether through the chamber of commerce or through their children’s schools.”
In addition to nearly three decades of work, the Notos have carved out spare time to get involved in the community, volunteering year after year for organizations like the American Cancer Society, the Garlic Festival and the Gilroy Rotary Club. The family had a brush with Garlic City fame when their daughter, Melissa, was crowned Garlic Festival Queen in 2003. And in recent weeks, the city unveiled a new police headquarters named in honor of Lynn’s father, Jim Laizure, who was sworn in as Gilroy’s first police chief in 1960. The headquarters in central Gilroy stands on the home where Lynn and her family once lived.
The fact that Garlic City Glass is even around is a testament to the support of good friends and employees, say the Notos, who both suffered sudden and serious illnesses in the last few years. Lynn was diagnosed with an unknown illness that kept her from working during 2004 and 2005. She eventually recovered and returned in early 2006. Just before she got back on the job, Benji suffered stroke and was out for almost a year.
The couple was buoyed by support from the community and a superhuman effort by their employees. Benji described how glass cutter Pablo Martinez stepped up to manage the other cutters and installers and worked “dawn until dusk.”
“We had real good people here,” Benji said. “I can’t imagine how they did it.”
Nowadays, the Notos also get help from their son, 22-year-old Kevin, but that doesn’t mean they’re taking it easy. Benji still cuts glass and does home installations, and Lynn tends to customers and helps manage the book-keeping in the office. The couple has no plans to retire anytime soon.
“We’re back,” Lynn Noto said. “We’re in full swing and we’re ready to serve our community any way we can.”
