BOBBY PATEL and his brother, Nilesh, help run a small liquor store in Manchester. The family business is Bill’s Liquor Store, a name familiar to many in the area since 1967. But behind the bottles and counters lies a story of migration, fate, and resilience that began decades earlier, thousands of miles away.
“I was 4 years old. I still remember it,” Bobby said, recalling the moment his family left Canada in 1979 in a tiny red Volkswagen Rabbit bound for Miami. “We were leaving pretty much a lot of our belongings behind. I remember toys and things like that. You know, you’re a child and you’re leaving.”
Their journey started long before that, with Bobby’s father, Thakorbhai “Taco” Patel, born in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1945 to Indian parents.
“He was born a British citizen because, at that time, Kenya was under British rule,” Bobby said.
His father had dreams of America even as a young man. He first moved to London, where he trained as a carpenter and married Bobby’s mother in an arranged marriage. The couple then moved to Toronto, Canada, where Bobby was born.
But America — the “States,” as his father called it — was always the goal. And in 1979, Taco packed his family into that little Rabbit and hit the interstate for Miami.
But first, they found themselves broken down in Tennessee.
“Our car broke down just outside of Manchester,” Bobby said. “I remember being scared. I left my friends. I went to preschool in Canada… we didn’t have cellphones or anything back then.”
A local tow truck driver named Leon Brown came to their rescue.
“He fixed my dad’s car in just a few minutes and refused to take any money. He just gave my dad a handshake and a business card from Al White Motors and told us to be on our way.”
But the kindness stuck with them. After reaching Miami and driving around, unsure of their next steps, Bobby’s parents had a quiet conversation in Gujarati in the backseat.
“They said they were tired of big cities. My dad said, ‘Let’s go back to that small town. People there were nice.’ So we turned around.”
They returned to Manchester, visited Leon at Al White Motors, and even stayed in the motel Leon had recommended.
“It was called the 8-Inn Motel. And my dad had this idea. He thought, ‘I could run this place.’ So he made an offer and bought it.”
With no experience in the hospitality industry, Taco Patel became a motel owner. Over time, he acquired more motels and rental houses and even ventured into billboard advertising.
But in 1986, Bobby’s oldest brother, Yogesh, was paralyzed in a four-wheeler accident at age 14.
“Doctors said he wouldn’t make it,” Bobby said. “My mom fainted in the elevator at Vanderbilt Hospital the day she went to see him. My dad lost it; he thought he’d lost both.”
The medical bills quickly piled up, even with insurance.
“My dad had to sell off most of his businesses to pay for my brother’s care,” Bobby said. “We struggled for years.”
Help came again from Leon Brown.
“He was with the Shriners Hospital and suggested we take my brother to their facility in Kentucky. They took care of his medical needs. We were blessed,” he said.
By the early ’90s, the Patels were financially strained and searching for a new path. Bobby’s mother’s cousin in Indiana suggested the liquor business.
“My dad didn’t know anything about liquor,” Bobby said. “But he asked my brother, Dipan, and me. I was 17, and he was 18. We said, ‘Yeah, we can do it.’ I was working at Wendy’s at the time.”
Taco approached the owner of Bill’s Liquor Store, Willard Mills, who had opened it in 1967. “It wasn’t even for sale, but Willard decided to sell it to my dad anyway,” Bobby said. “So we bought the business in 1991.”
Several years later, Taco purchased the building, too. While cleaning out the attic, Bobby found old invoices from Al White Motors, of all places.
“Turns out, this building used to be Al White Motors before it became Bill’s Liquor. That’s where Leon worked, the guy who towed our car and changed our lives. It gave me chills. Full circle, right?”
Today, Bobby has been working at the store for 34 years. He studied law and graduated from Nashville School of Law in 2002. But when his father fell ill with congestive heart failure, he returned home to run the store full time.
“I tried to study for the bar while managing the business. It was just too much. But I always saw this as Plan B, and I love it here,” he said.
Nilesh also works as a local deputy and is married to Smita, who can also be found behind the counter at Bill’s.
Now a father himself, Bob- by has raised his two daughters, Addy and Aspen, in Manchester with his wife, Lindsey.
“My girls go to College Street Elementary, the same school my wife and I went to. I’m really happy how things turned out,” he said.
Bobby said he is grateful to the people who helped his family all those years ago and set the fate for the path his life would take.
“Honestly, I’m just grateful. We met Leon Brown and the wonderful residents of Manchester, and they made this a home for us. I don’t know how it would have turned out in Miami, but I’m thankful we broke down here,” he said. GN
