It's in the goodbyes that we see the people who enrich our lives

About a month ago, Dave Magnuson learned he'd have to leave a downtown Minneapolis food court where he'd run the Walkin' Dog hot dog joint since 1991.

A renovation of the three-building Northstar complex that began two years ago had finally reached the first-floor food court. A leasing manager said he'd be welcome to come back when it was done in 12 to 18 months.

But at age 63, Magnuson instead decided it was time to retire. No more waking up at 4:30 a.m. to have time to pick up some supplies and be downtown by 6 to start preparing food. He closed Walkin' Dog on Friday.

"It's a year, a year-plus to wait," he said in an interview a few days before he closed. "I just don't think I will have the motivation to restart all the things I deal with all day, every day."

The decision to close a business happens hundreds of times around the U.S. every day, a rate that's accelerating as baby boomers retire. Half of the nation's businesses are owned by people older than 55.

But to the person deciding to close, it's one of those heightened moments in life, like marriage, divorce, the birth of a child or the death of a loved one.

We give it far less attention than those moments. The greeting card industry notices only with generic "congratulations" cards. There are no photographers who cater to recording the last days of a business.

However, the emotional journey of a person closing a business — or retiring or making a career change — is often deep and long. At the heart of it is something akin to what we experience when we leave high school or college. Those are the first times in our lives when we let go of a large batch of friends and acquaintances.

Such transitions have been on my mind because they've been happening in my office. The Star Tribune's chief executive and publisher, Mike Klingensmith, just retired after 13 years atop the company. His successor, Steve Grove, started work last Monday.

And right here in the Business section, Neal St. Anthony published his last column Friday. He's been telling the stories of entrepreneurial Minnesotans for 40 years.

Since Magnuson announced on Facebook on April 9 that he would close Walkin' Dog, the lunchtime lines stretched longer every day. This past week, some people waited 45 minutes or more for Walkin' Dog's last dogs.

"It's just been crazy," he said. "The attention is very heartwarming. I feel humble and grateful, just seeing so many people who I have known."

A week ago Friday, the same thing was happening to the Elsen brothers, Bob and Joe, on the last day of business at their auto repair shop right next to Interstate 494 on Portland Avenue in Richfield.

A steady stream of customers dropped by to wish them well. The waiting area had three boxes of doughnuts left off by well-wishers. In the adjacent office, another five were still in bags.

"One guy made us a trophy, automotive and blacksmith," Joe Elsen said, holding out the new award that had a miniature anvil and race car.

Their great-grandfather, John Elsen, opened a blacksmith shop at the very spot in 1891, when it was an intersection of dirt roads amid farms. Their grandfather, Eugene, turned it into a mechanic's shop when autos came along, though he continued to shoe horses into the 1950s.

Their father, Rich, and uncle Don ran it from the 1960s to the early 1990s, when they took over.

"We are Richfield's oldest continuous business," Bob Elsen said. "We've been honest with people and have done quality work. That's why we lasted."

Three years ago, state officials notified the brothers that their property would likely fall under eminent domain as part of a plan to widen I-494. That became a certainty last year, and they looked around for other places to relocate. The closest was 10 miles away in Burnsville.

The brothers thought that was too far for their customers. Bob, who is 73 and already partly retired, and Joe, who just turned 66, decided to close rather than try to attract a new clientele. Four employees, including Joe's son, have already been hired by other auto shops.

"Most of our customers have been coming here for years and years," Bob said. "They come in the door, and we know their names. They become our friends, that kind of stuff. So, yeah, that's going to be the hard part."

For all the material wealth of running a business and for all the psychic income over the arc of a career, the casual associations and friendships that form along the way produce a reward that's immeasurable.

They widen our world and add color and flavor in a different way from our deep friendships and familial relationships. In a purely transactional sense, they yield big returns on less investment.

Magnuson got a taste of the loss of those business relationships in the 2020 pandemic. After the initial state-ordered shutdown, he reopened Walkin' Dog. But business was so slow that he started making a list of customers he missed, including people he knew just by their job and favorite hot dog.

Like other downtown restaurant operators, Magnuson over the years developed relationships with the city's homeless. Almost every day, someone would ask him for a free dog. He learned to recognize people who were truly hungry.

In late 2021, a leasing manager asked Magnuson to move Walkin' Dog to a different spot in the food court. Renovation work had started on the adjacent hotel. Since all of the other restaurants in the food court had closed amid the pandemic, Magnuson could easily move into one of the empty spots.

But he thought it might be time to close Walkin' Dog and told the manager he'd decide in a day or two. A short time later, a woman in her 20s or 30s walked in off the street.

"By her appearance, you could tell she had a very tough life," Magnuson recalled last week. "She was shopworn. Her hands were calloused, and she was very kind.

"She started telling me her story and talking to me about how she ended up where she is today. And it wasn't from addiction. Her eyes were clear. She was sober. And she started to cry. And I started to cry just listening to her describe a lifestyle that I'm grateful to God I've never experienced."

He decided right then to stay open and move to the different spot. The woman never returned.

But in the year and a half since then, other customers did, even when an escalator from the skyway to the food court was shut down.

In Walkin' Dog's final days, Magnuson worried about juggling the right amount of inventory — he first ran out of cherry flavoring for shakes — and properly saying goodbye.

The lines of people meant a lot of work, and the handshakes meant a lot of emotion.

"It's very overwhelming," he said.