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New Mobile Golf Cart Repair Company Launches
A Venice couple invests in a man profiled by Sarasota Magazine as part of a story about life
after incarceration.
On a cool, drizzly Saturday morning in an open
garage at Venice’s Edgewood Nursery, Sal D’An-
gelo examines the clutch of a broken-down golf
cart with the eye of a surgeon. Something isn’t
working right, but he’s struggling to pop open
the clutch to see what’s causing the problem.
He squeezes the round hunk of metal into a vice
and leans over to get a closer look.
Although he spends four hours at Edgewood ev-
ery Saturday morning, D’Angelo isn’t an employ-
ee. His light gray T-shirt displays the name of the
business he launched late last year, D’Angelo’s
Mobile Golf Cart Express, with the help of Dan
and Melissa Burns, the husband, and wife who
own Edgewood.
Edgewood uses a dozen or so golf carts to take
customers around the sprawling property and
to transport trees and plants back and forth,
and they often break down. “They’re not built
for what we do to them,” says Dan Burns. Years
ago, while D’Angelo was working at a Sarasota
company that builds and repairs golf carts, a col-
league connected him to the Burnses, and D’An-
gelo showed up one Saturday morning, ready to
work. He’s been coming ever since.
D’Angelo was born in Far Rockaway, New York,
and was addicted to drugs at the age of 13. He
spent 16 months in a Florida prison after being
convicted of two strong-arm robberies commit-
ted in Tampa in late 1999. After his release in
2002, he was arrested again multiple times, until
2010, when he enrolled in the Sarasota County
jail recovery program, which helped him finally
get sober. He started working on golf carts the
following year.
D’Angelo’s story was told in depth in a 2017 Sara-
sota Magazine feature on life after incarceration.
After the article came out, D’Angelo’s girlfriend,
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Erin Babich, gave birth to Aryanna, the couple’s
first daughter. When the Burnses read the story
and saw how D’Angelo was struggling to make
ends meet with a new baby, they felt motivated
to help. They decided to back D’Angelo’s idea for
a new business: a mobile operation that would
have D’Angelo traveling to various businesses
and neighborhoods where he could fix busted
golf carts. “We could invest our money with a
guy in a suit or in a person,” says Dan. D’Angelo’s
Mobile Golf Cart Express was born.
D’Angelo designed the company’s logo, a blend
of Italian and Irish imagery and colors, and came
up with its slogan: “Salvatore the Italian Golf
Cart Technician, with a Pinch of Irish.” While still
employed part-time with a golf cart company, he
uses his free time to market his new company,
handing out business cards, posting on Facebook
and calling on businesses that might need his
services. He’s currently working out of the trunk
of his car but has plans to purchase a truck and
deck it out with the company logo. “We’re taking
baby steps,” D’Angelo says. “When anyone starts
a new business, it’s scary.”
Using a long metal bar and a hammer, D’Angelo
bangs on the clutch until it begins to budge. It
finally pops open, releasing a puff of rusty dust.
After replacing the guts of the clutch, D’Angelo
works it back onto the cart. “I love what I do,” he
says. He sits in the cart’s driver seat, turns the
key and gooses the gas pedal. The engine whirrs
loudly and emits black fumes. D’Angelo is happy.
“It’s working,” he says loudly.
CONTACT
For more info about D’Angelo’s Mobile Golf Cart
Express, follow the company on Facebook or call
(941) 587-6799.