Belle Tire eyes continued growth in Chicagoland

SOUTHFIELD, Mich.—The folks who operate Belle Tire Distributors Inc. are, admittedly, a little different.

It is apparent from the first moment a visitor arrives in Southfield, a city of 75,000-plus residents 15 miles northwest of downtown Detroit. The words "Belle Tire" and the firm's iconic "Tireman" logo greet visitors atop the Century office building, 11 floors up.

Not many tire dealerships choose to move their corporate staff of 100 out of a crowded but functioning office/warehouse and into a high rise, leasing 33,000 square feet—with 22,000 square feet in use on the 10th floor and 11,000 square feet available on the 11th.

Even the name of the century-old dealership, with a silent "e" at the end, has a distinct spelling.

"We like doing the hard things, and we lean to the hard versus running away," Don Barnes III, the dealership's president, told Tire Business during an exclusive interview recently at company headquarters.

Barnes oversees 181 Belle Tire locations in four states—Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Ohio—with another greenfield location set to open in Madison, Ill., later this year. That makes the 102-year-old company the ninth largest independent retail tire dealership in the U.S.

"That's why we're maybe made a little bit different than others," he said. "We lean into the hard stuff and smile while it goes on."

One example of Belle Tire's hard-stuff approach is one of its latest initiatives: entering the sprawling, and very expensive, Chicago market.

"It's a high barrier to enter that market, ... everything just is more in Chicago," Barnes said. "Then when you look at the competitive set, the entities there have been there for decades."

Most of those competitors represent mega dealerships, as opposed to small or medium-sized regional retailers.

"So we looked at it as an opportunity to enter that market," he said, "and we are doing well."

With a population of roughly 9.5 million inhabitants, the Chicago metro area — aka Chicagoland — is the nation's third largest metropolitan area. Depending on the definition of the Chicago metro area, there could be as many as 5 million cars, vans, light trucks, etc. registered throughout the region.

Belle Tire opened its first four locations in the greater Chicago area in 2021 and today operates 30 locations in the Chicago suburbs—it has opened 10 there in the last eight months—with an eye toward operating as many as 80 stores there over the next few years.

The dealership has no outlets in the city of Chicago proper, instead targeting densely populated areas in the suburbs.

"We're really trying to set our roots down there," Barnes said. That means hiring local people and investing in strategic partnerships, just as Belle Tire has done throughout its history.

The dealership has established a promotional partnership with the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks, one of professional hockey's Original Six franchises, just as it has with the Detroit Red Wings, another member of the Original Six.

Barnes said the partnership is a way "to really infuse ourselves into the community because Chicago is a great sports town, just like Detroit is. That's one way to really build awareness and again, kind of entrench ourselves into the new markets that we're in."

Even future leaders of the company must navigate a hard path to reach the top.

The eldest of six siblings, Barnes knew early in his life that Belle Tire was his passion, sparked by dinner conversations his grandfather (Don Barnes Sr.), father (Don Barnes Jr.) and uncle (Robert Barnes) carried on.

In order to be put in a position to run the business, he first had to take the Family Leadership Program, a two-year initiative put together by his father and uncle for family members. The accelerated path to leadership has a simple but important premise: in order to be put in a position to run the company, one first must understand how the company runs.

"It's all about you working in every single job in the company, different lengths of time to really understand how it runs, and the importance of each position," Barnes said. "Our company, just like most, is just a big spiderweb of individuals and teams that have to work cross-functionally in order to achieve that common goal."

He said the program gives leaders the perspective to make better decisions.

Barnes first went to work at the Belle Tire recycling plant, then moved to the commercial tire department, where he changed tires on Interstate 94, "in the dead of winter." He also worked in the distribution center, a retread facility, in retail stores and in marketing.

Barnes, a Crain's Detroit Business 40 Under 40 honoree in 2022, was named company president in September 2014. "I am privileged to lead this great company," he said.

Belle Tire traces its roots to Detroit, where Sam Waze founded the dealership with one location on Grand River Avenue in 1922. Waze named the entity after his wife Belle. Their son Herb eventually succeeded his father.

According to the company, Don Barnes Sr., a Kelly Tire salesman, left his job to partner with Waze, officially joining the business on April 1, 1970. They opened several locations in Michigan over the next two decades, including shops in Roseville, West Bloomfield, Troy and Traverse City.

Barnes bought out Waze's shares in the company in the mid-1980s, while the dealership continued to expand. Belle Tire acquired American Tire, Delta Tire, Great Lakes Tire and Elkin Tire in the 1980s, and in the ensuing decade, purchased Tireman and Metro 2.

By 1997 Belle Tire was up to 45 locations and 650 employees.

In 2003, the company expanded outside of Michigan, acquiring three stores in Toledo, Ohio. Three years later, the burgeoning company moved its headquarters to Allen Park, Mich., in a facility with an adjoining distribution and fulfillment center.

The growth spurt continued, opening a handful of stores in Michigan every year from 2008-2014. And in 2015, the first Belle Tire store opened in Indiana, with locations in South Bend, Mishawaka and Elkhart, soon followed by stores in Muncie and Fort Wayne.

In 2016 Belle Tire merged its commercial division with Tredroc Tire Services of Elk Grove Village, Ill., creating a joint venture with 24 locations in six Midwest states and seven Bandag-system retread plants.

In 2018 Belle opened its 100th retail store, in Kokomo, Ind.

Greater Chicago became the next Belle frontier three years later.

In February 2023, Belle Tire acquired Tireman Auto Service Centers of Toledo, Ohio, expanding in northwest Ohio, where Tireman now has 15 locations. Tireman generated more than $56 million in sales in fiscal 2021.

"There's the old saying: If you're not growing, you're dying," Barnes said.

"No matter where we're at—Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois—we're great participants in the markets that we're serving. We don't want to be that kind of a transient, transactional company," he said. "We really want to serve the community."

While the Barnes family is fully entrenched in the dealership—Don's father, Don Jr., and uncle, Robert Barnes, own the company and three of Don Barnes III's siblings are employed there—the Barneses don't treat it as a traditional family-run entity.

He said the dealership is a business first, with family members in it. The North Star always has been doing what is best for Belle Tire, a philosophy passed down for three generations.

"We don't really look at ourselves as a family business," Barnes said. "We're a business here to take care of all of the 3,100 other families (of each employee) and our external customers. If we do that really, really well, then our family will be just fine."

In September 2021, Belle Tire sold its Tredroc Tire Services Inc. business unit to Pomp's Tire Service Inc., exiting the commercial side of the tire business.

Barnes said it was important for Belle to sell its commercial assets to a "great commercial entity" such as Pomp's, which would ensure that the 300-plus affected employees would be put in a position to succeed.

"That's their core competency," he said of Pomp's.

"We wanted to focus on our core, which was retail, and make sure as we continued to grow and invest, that we invested in our core."

That investment not only includes greenfield stores that have been or will be built, but also the expansion of the distribution center, adding close to 90,000 square feet to the existing 300,000-sq.-ft. warehouse.

The expansion necessitated the move last October to a Southfield high-rise, where the "Support Center"—Barnes said Belle Tire management prefers that term since employees there do not generate revenue but rather support those who do—operates.

As the dealership moves steadily toward its goal of 80 or so stores in the Chicago metro area, Belle Tire is evaluating its next move, which, according to Barnes, could be one—or more—of a half-dozen metro areas in contiguous regions, such as Milwaukee, St. Louis, Cleveland, Columbus or Cincinnati.

Of these, Milwaukee is probably most like Chicago in that it's more fragmented, without a clear market leader or leaders.

Barnes said he believes Belle Tire offers an outstanding work environment.

"Everyone has fun. More importantly, people genuinely want to help each other and win as a team and support the people in the front lines, in our retail stores. ... There's tons of opportunities."

He said it's important for him and the Belle Tire family to continue to focus on what is the most important part of any dealership: The customer.

"We understand and we're sympathetic, and empathetic with them, having to repair a vehicle," he said. "It's not fun. But just because it's not fun, that doesn't mean you can't have a neighbor like us to kind of give you that peace of mind and trust."

Barnes said it's important to maintain that focus.

"And we'll be that partner for hopefully many more years to come. But we also know that we start at zero every day. We get the opportunity to earn our customers' trust with every transaction, every phone call and every interaction that we have, and we don't ever want to lose sight of that."