Business Profile: Reliable Oil Company, Yorktown
Photo credit: Neal Rentz
Much has changed in Yorktown over the period of several decades, including the business owned by the Mastro family that opened in 1939.
The Reliable Oil Company had a different mission when it was opened as Reliable Service by the late Louis Mastro, his son recalled last week.
“He started as an ice delivery man in Yorktown,” Mastro, Sr. said. “Not realizing it was a summer community, at the end of summer all the ice business stopped, so he had nothing else to do. So he started cutting wood and selling wood and then he started selling kerosene to heat homes.”
Mastro added that his father continued to sell ice and added selling charcoal for barbecues during the summers and later sold coal for home heating.
The business transitioned to selling fuel oil in the late 1940s Mastro, Sr. said, adding his brother, Frank, entered the business in 1951 and Mastro, Sr. came to work full-time in the family endeavor a decade later. Mastro said it was natural for him to want to work at his father’s company full-time because it is a family-oriented venture that caters to homeowners and light commercial businesses.
“I just fell right into the business because I worked all my life in the business from when I was very young,” he said.
The company’s loyal customers are mainly located in Yorktown and Somers, Mastro Sr. said. “We try to treat them by our name, reliable,” he said. “It’s a great business. It’s also great being in the Town of Yorktown where I was raised.”
Though Yorktown still has a small town feel, “It’s gotten larger than it was originally,” Mastro said, but he knows nearly everyone who lives in town. “I just love the people around here,” he said. “It’s just nice that you can greet everyone on the street by name.”
The company’s facility has two underground oil tanks that can store up to a combined total of 30,000 gallons of oil.
Louis Mastro, Jr., who co-owns the company with his father, has been working full-time for Reliable Oil for nearly 23 years. He said the company installs and services boilers and oil tanks “and taking care of any oil need.”
Mastro, Sr. said he has no intention of selling his business. “I wouldn’t give this up for anything,” he said.
The Reliable Oil Company is located at 277 Veterans Rd. in Yorktown. For more information call 914-962-4508.
