Nestled along Highway 5, near Fuller Road and Venture Lane, sits Prairie Lawn and Garden. It is one of the last family-owned businesses in Eden Prairie and will close its doors on March 31.
Prairie Lawn and Garden has been an Eden Prairie staple for 53 years since Stan and Bonnie Riegert opened the business in 1973. The shop sells lawn care tools and provides customers and staff with expertise in machine maintenance.
The store’s current owners, Bonnie and Stan’s children, Patty Hobbs and Tom Riegert, said they are actively looking to sell the business and hope to find another lawn care machine company to take its place.
Prairie Lawn and Garden began as a simple idea in the early 1970s when Stan worked at a repair shop in Minnetonka called Seven High Repair, Hobbs said. He started getting inquiries from clients to fix their lawnmowers or tractors outside of work. Impressed by Stan’s abilities, his boss said he should open his own business.
The business’s first location, a two-stall garage, sat on the hill behind the site of its current building, Patty said. Even as they started the business, Stan continued working full time, so he worked on it in the evenings while Bonnie staffed the shop during the day.
Before long, the operation turned into a full family affair. Tom said he started helping with the business at around 12 years old, possibly even younger.
“Every one of us kids has worked here some time or another,” Hobbs said. “Grandkids have worked here, cousins, (it’s) very family oriented.”
The Riegerts decided to move their business into a newer building in 1977, Hobbs said. They built their permanent location down the hill from the two-stall garage, where a construction company handled the exterior and the Riegert family finished the interior.
“My parents were frugal, and they thought, ‘Why spend good money when we can do it ourselves?’” Hobbs said. “So even the interior of the building, we hung insulation in here, sheetrock, everything.”
They moved into the new building in 1978 and remain there today, Hobbs said.
The Riegerts further expanded Prairie Lawn and Garden in the mid-1980s when they began hiring employees outside the family, Hobbs added. Each employee was welcomed to the business with open arms.
“The neat thing about my parents is, even if you weren’t family, you became family,” Hobbs said. “When kids leave here who’ve worked here, they say this is not like any other job.”
Bonnie made sure there were always cookies for the employees to eat, and the family kept track of them even after they moved on to a new chapter in their lives.
Hobbs said her father was born and raised in Eden Prairie and was an active member of the community. He worked as a school bus driver for Eden Prairie Schools, was involved in the city’s Civil Defense and was a charter member of the Eden Prairie Fire Department.
“Everybody knew my dad, Stan the Man,” Hobbs recalled.
Patty and Tom sought to buy the business from their parents after their parents decided to retire. Hobbs said they were hesitant to pass the business on to them but eventually sold it to their children in 2012 after a year of negotiations.
“They weren’t sure if we were ready,” Hobbs said with a chuckle. “You know, we weren’t gray enough yet.”
Hobbs noted that she and Tom’s children both helped with the business when they were young but have now gone on to start their own careers outside the business. Family help has diminished, and now Hobbs and Tom are the sole family members working at Prairie Lawn and Garden.
Hobbs compared their business to a farming family, where everyone has to help keep it running.
“Tom and I wanted to make sure our kids never felt they had to work here,” Hobbs said. “We wanted them to go off and look at other things.”
Prairie Lawn and Garden employed between 500 and 700 people over the last 50 years, Hobbs said. They taught many of their employees valuable lessons in work ethic and instilled a passion for working with machinery.
“We have a couple of employees who run their own businesses. We’ve got some who started lawn services. A lot of kids who worked here were our engineers,” Hobbs said. “We’ve had a lot of success.”
One employee who started working at Prairie Lawn and Garden when he was a 16-year-old still works there one Saturday a month in his mid-30s.
Finding employees in recent years has proven difficult, Hobbs said. For the most part, Hobbs and Tom are the only ones working. Between staffing difficulties, tariffs and the costs of running a business, they decided it was the right time to close.
Beyond logistical difficulties, Hobbs said she and Tom are ready for their next chapter — and a break. Each of them puts 60 to 70 hours a week into the business, and it is difficult not to take work home with them.
“I’m looking forward to never working a Saturday again,” Hobbs said. “We’ve worked Saturdays all our lives, all our lives, sometimes every Saturday of the month, sometimes two Saturdays a month.”
Prairie Lawn and Garden has held onto customers across generations, Hobbs said. Some have been coming in since the shop opened in 1973, while others are the children of its original customers.
Customers stop Hobbs and Tom in the grocery or at church to chat and ask them questions about their machinery, she said.
“That means we did a good enough job,” Hobbs said.
Hobbs and Tom said they are thankful for the customers who stuck with them over the decades, noting that many recommend their business to other community members.
“We wouldn’t be where we’re at — you’ve got to have the customers, and they’re very loyal customers,” Hobbs said.
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