When he got the chance to take over a once successful store, Gene Hisel took it.

“I didn’t have an idea of it really,” said Hisel. “The chance came to me and I made a quick decision.”

Afterward, Hisel began working hard to clean up what was once a thriving Cheers Package Store, but had grown dirty and run down and even a little bit dangerous.

“People didn’t really want to go in,” said Hisel. “It needed a major clean-up and repair so that was the first thing we worried about doing. The exterior was in bad shape, so we painted over the palm trees and changed it to the match closer to the bricks.”

A carwash business was also being run on the outside of the store that had to be removed.

“It’s just not very professional to have something like that,” said Hisel. ”People don’t want to come into a store when that is on the outside. We asked them to relocate and really started the clean-up.”

On the inside, additions were made to accommodate a larger selection of products.

“There just wasn’t enough room to accommodate what we wanted to do here,” he said. “So we added on to it so we had more to work with.”

Since its reopening, business has been much better.

“We are getting it back to what it once was,” said Hisel.

“People feel like they can come here again and the feedback has been really positive. So we are pretty happy.”