Augie's Paint & Body

Augie’s Paint & Body is a classic immigrant business success story. Agostino Nocita immigrated to Canada in 1965 and started working in an auto body shop. One of the guys couldn’t pronounce his name correctly, so he shortened it to Augie after a popular cartoon dog appearing on TV at the time. Agostino became part-owner of a body shop in the mid-'70s and then in 1981 opened Augie’s Paint & Body just off Edmonton Trail on 36 Avenue Northeast, where it still services dents, dings and all types of auto body repair work today.

His two sons were often seen kicking about the garage and helping their pop around the shop. “Back when we were in school, we kind of worked with dad in the summertime and basically we chose to help him out,” says Joe Nocita who, along with his brother Nick, took over Augie’s Paint & Body from their dad in 2001. “After all these years I still truly enjoy coming to work,” Joe adds.