Julio’s vulcanizer has survived on Ancha de San Antonio for 40 Years

For more than 40 years, Julio’s vulcanizer has survived in downtown San Miguel de Allende

Published July 3, 2024

A few blocks from the heart of the city, a peculiar business survives for the area: a vulcanizer. Among bazaars, restaurants, boutiques and other shops aimed at tourists who visit San Miguel de Allende daily, the small workshop is located. Julio César Vázquez has been attending the vulcanizer for more than 40 years.

Before it was “more downtown,” he says, but since 1983 it has been located on Ancha de San Antonio Street, just a few blocks from Jardín Principal.

The business, installed on a family property, has been his livelihood and that of his family; born in San Miguel who refuse to leave the house that saw them grow up, despite the development and the multiple offers to buy their property.

Today, he says that 70% of his customers are motorcyclists. Although it also repairs tires for little devils and wheelbarrows, drivers of cars and trucks continue to come to seek its service, but in smaller quantities.

Julio started patching tires when he was 11 years old and still remembers that, at that time, they played soccer on the street that is now one of the busiest in the city. He remembers that almost no cars passed, if “one every five minutes”. The foreign bus stop was located a few meters from the premises, so he even had to fix tires of the Flecha Amarilla.

Source (sp) […]