Cover Story: Built to Last

A FATHER AND SON BUILDING A CAR WASH LEGACY

HER PHOTO: BONNIE & CLYDE DAYS • VINTAGE CARS • THE HISTORIC SQUARE

Long before there was a Beach Club Car Wash, there were chicken nuggets.

They were scattered across the backseat of Alesha Keller’s car, courtesy of two young Keller boys, Zach and his brother. Every Sunday, Vic Keller would load the family up for church, climb into his wife’s car and wonder how it had once again become such a disaster.

Alesha, Vic laughs, was the family’s “director of fun.” Cleaning the car simply wasn’t high on her priority list.

So Vic developed a Sunday tradition. He would drop the car at a nearby full-service wash, walk to church with his family and pick it up afterward.

There was just one problem.

The experience wasn’t very good.

Eventually, in a move that probably tells you everything you need to know about serial entrepreneur Vic Keller, he decided that if he wanted a better car wash, he might as well buy the car wash.

And he did.

That first wash was a massive operation with roughly 40 employees. Even Zach and his brother worked there as kids. Vic would eventually sell it, but he never forgot what the experience taught him.

“I recognized that the car wash industry was not the most inviting experience for a consumer,” Vic remembers.

There had to be a better way.

Years later, that question would become Beach Club Car Wash—and those boys throwing chicken nuggets in the backseat would become part of the story again.

From Sunday Car Washes to Beach Club

Vic Keller is no stranger to entrepreneurship. He has founded 17 companies and spent much of his career building, buying and investing in businesses.

In 2019, he began looking seriously at what it would take to reinvent the car wash model. Rather than simply opening locations, he started building the infrastructure behind them—equipment manufacturing, chemicals, maintenance, service and installation.

He wanted control of the experience from beginning to end.

By 2023, he was ready to begin imagining the customer-facing business.

“What is the Chick-fil-A of car washes?” he remembers asking.

He envisioned something bright instead of intimidating. Simple instead of complicated. Fast, consistent and welcoming. A place where customers could become members, get a dependable wash and know exactly what to expect every time.

There was still one thing missing: a name.

Vic had even experimented with AI trying to find it.

Nothing worked.

Then Alesha heard him talking about the concept.

“You should call it Beach Club,” she told him. “Everybody wants to go to the beach club.”

And just like that, another member of the Keller family had left her fingerprints on the company.

Enter the Next Generation

Today, 30-year-old Zach Keller is helping build Beach Club alongside his father.

His path there was anything but predictable.

A former college football player who also spent time racing NASCAR, Zach became a teacher before moving into e-commerce for a luxury furniture company and later software sales.

“I learned what a credenza was on the job,” he jokes.

But when his dad began talking about Beach Club, Zach noticed something different.

“I’ve seen him launch I have no idea how many companies,” Zach says. “He’s always excited about them, but this one—he was super excited about.”

When Vic eventually offered him a position, Zach jumped in.

And “jumping in” is probably the best description of his job.

On any given day Zach might deliver blueprints, figure out how to install a city approval sign, create social media, attend a community event or help solve a problem at a location.

For him, that is part of the appeal.

“I get to learn every day.”

For Vic, putting Zach into Beach Club was intentional.

Unlike some of the more complicated businesses he has built, Beach Club gives his son an opportunity to watch something grow from dirt to completion—to see land developed, zoning secured, construction completed, a brand created, employees hired and customers served.

“You can build a brand all day long,” Vic says, “but a brand is nothing without a band.”

For Beach Club, that “band” includes family.

Putting Down Roots in North Texas

Beach Club may have ambitions of becoming a national company, but Zach is concentrating on something much closer to home: community.

He grew up here.

That matters to him.

“We’re not some big franchise coming in and taking over,” Zach says. “We’ve been here forever.”

In Crowley, Beach Club has supported youth sports, schools, the police department and the Crowley House of Hope. In Aubrey and the surrounding area, Zach is developing relationships with schools, athletic programs and local organizations, including sponsorships at Braswell High School and support for a young local rodeo competitor.

“If you could see my fingerprint anywhere,” Zach says, “I hope it would be in the community.”

That philosophy fits particularly well along the 380 and 377 corridors, where small towns are rapidly becoming cities while still fighting to hold onto the relationships and traditions that made them special in the first place.

Beach Club currently plans aggressive growth throughout North Texas, with Vic believing the region could eventually support 50 locations.

But both father and son insist that growth means little if they lose the human side of the business.

In fact, Beach Club was originally designed to operate without employees onsite.

Just weeks before opening, Vic changed the plan.

Technology could run the wash. It couldn’t replace a person welcoming a customer.

So Beach Club added what it calls its lifeguards—employees whose primary job isn’t washing cars but caring for people.

“We just want our customers to feel safe and feel like there are humans behind this business,” Vic says. “If there’s a problem, we’re going to take care of it. We’re not going to hide.”

The Family Business

Working with family, of course, isn't always sentimental.

Sometimes Dad calls after hours wanting to talk about a car wash when Zach would much rather discuss football.

Sometimes Zach thinks his father’s expectations are excessive.

Or at least he used to.

“My dad has very high standards for everything,” Zach says. “Before, I was like, ‘He’s asking way too much.’ Now I’m like, ‘Okay. It makes sense.’”

Ownership has changed the way he sees things. A piece of trash in a parking lot is no longer somebody else’s problem. A dirty tunnel matters. Every detail reflects on the family and the company they are building.

Vic sees that transformation happening.

“I think Zach is more like me than he realizes,” he says.

The greatest compliment Vic has received about his son came recently from someone inside the business.

They told him Zach didn’t act entitled. He was humble. He worked alongside everyone else.

For a father who has built 17 companies, that comment may have meant more than any sales report.

Because Beach Club isn't simply another business.

It is an opportunity to pass something down that cannot be written into an inheritance.

Work ethic.

Faith.

Responsibility.

Community.

The courage to build something when there is no guarantee it will work.

And the understanding that whatever success comes from it should be used well.

Asked what the finish line looks like, Vic never mentioned a dollar amount.

Instead, he talked about stewardship.

His hope is that the Keller family will be faithful with whatever God entrusts to them and that the business will allow them to continue serving communities on an even greater scale.

Zach’s answer was even simpler.

When they reach that finish line, he said, he’ll probably turn to his dad and ask:

“What’s next?”

Because maybe that is how family traditions really begin.

Not by doing things exactly the way generations before us did them.

But by walking beside them long enough to understand why they did them at all—and then carrying the best parts forward.

4722 Farm to Market Rd 720 | Aubrey, TX 76227