Chris Snell has been working at the hardware store since 1989 and he and his wife Simone Watts have now taken ownership of the business. It comes as former owners Greg and Jacqui Malseed have retired after 15 years of running the stores.

"This was basically my first job when I left school," Mr Snell said.

"I started on the floor and slowly moved up.

"Greg and Jacqui have now retired, but I was Greg's right-hand man for many years and prior to Greg owning the business, he was George Taylor's right-hand man for many years.

"The baton's been passed on to me."

Mr Snell and Ms Watts took over the operation of the three George Taylor's Stores on April 1.

Mr Snell spends most of his weeks travelling through the stores at Grassmere, Warrnambool and Camperdown and Ms Watts has begun learning the ropes.

"I'm an accountant at Sinclair Wilson," Ms Watts said. "But I work at the Warrnambool store on the weekend.

"I'm working on the floor and it's been really great.

"It's something to break up the week and it's fun to play shops."

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While the coronavirus pandemic halted a lot of businesses from trading at their usual standard, it didn't slow business for George Taylor's Stores and Mr Snell had no hesitation in taking over ownership.

"Last year was actually quite good," Mr Snell said. "We traded quite well and I think people started to purposefully look for Australian and locally made products.

"We sold a lot of camping gear and we're going to be building on that. Later this year we're planning to extend our camping line and get some more up market gear in stores."

Since taking over the business, Mr Snell said he'd had a warm reception from regular customers and staff.

"I've been doing most things for quite a while now but of course there's always some challenges that pop up," he said.

"I had a very good relationship with George Taylor, and Greg and Jacqui were more like my brother and sister, we'd go around for dinner to their place every Thursday.

"It's always been a good place to work, I never found the need to look for work elsewhere.

"Thankfully the business has a very good working model; if it's not broken you don't have to fix it.

"We'll of course make some tweaks along the line but I think customers would be upset if we changed too much.

"If it wasn't us taking over the stores, Greg and Jacqui might've been forced to sell it elsewhere and that could've changed everything or closed it completely.

"I think it's all worked out well that we've been the ones who've taken it over."

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