The Donahue family purchased St. Cloud Harley-Davidson in August of 1992 from the former mayor of St. Cloud and his wife. With 20 years of experience at Delano Sport Center in our favor, the dealership has grown to support St. Cloud, and surrounding areas, including Little Falls and Brainerd. Much of this growth has stemmed from our commitment to customer satisfaction. We strive to make the dreams of every motorcycle owner come true.

Among our product offerings you will find new and used motorcycles,
a complete line of parts and accessories, as well as a large selection
of T-Shirts, jackets, chaps, vests, boots and much more. In addition,
our service department, with factory trained technicians, can offer
anything from a simple oil change to complete customization and
high performance enhancements, mild to wild! Our shop mascots
Lina and Sassy the Potbellied Pigs will greet you with an oink!

Often I have people ask how we got into the motorcycle business.  My father (Butch) loves motorcycles and at the age of 16 sold his show horse and bought a motorcycle.  Now my family was BIG into horses and showing horses.  Grandma was not to happy with Butch's decision.  His justification, "when I'm not riding it I do not have to feed, water, brush, or clean up after it!  Around the time I came into this world my father had acquired a family business, a nursing home,  I was really little but remember visiting the old lady's there, and one would always give me a shiny new penny.  Anyway, my father did get out of the nursing home and scraped every penny he had and some from his mother to buy a small motorcycle, snowmobile, lawn equipment, boat and outboard dealership in Delano, in 1971.  Struggled to pay the bills for the first few years, aquired and canceled just about every major franchise of motorcycles over the years, the only major ones we have not had are BMW and Ski Doo/Bombardier. 

I graduated in 1986, went to vocational school and after that was working for my father at Delano Sports Center.  Fast forward a couple years to early 1992, he and I were attending a local meeting with Harley-Davidson called a town hall meeting.  At this meeting were most of the Harley-Davidson dealers from Minnesota and close neighbors, including the owner of St. Cloud Harley-Davidson, who at the time was also the mayor of St. Cloud if I remember correctly.  Anyway, as Sam (St. Cloud H-D owner) came into the meeting my Father (Butch) asked him, “when are you going  to sell me that dump?” to which Sam replied “TODAY!”  I was oblivious, being 24 I was still pretty green behind the ears at business stuff, Sam and Butch were scribbling stuff on a cocktail napkin and tossing it back and forth across the table during the meeting.  As we were leaving Dad looked at me and said, “I think I just bought St. Cloud Harley”, my response was,  “What are you going to do with that?”  His response… “You’re going to run it for me”… “WHAT?”  I was a clueless 24 year old punk! 

And that is the story about how the Donahue family ended up with 2 Harley-Davidson Dealerships.  August 11th 1992 we took over, I remember coming in to the store in St. Cloud and seeing piles of paper and stuff everywhere, the cleaning and the work seemed overwhelming.  You know when you walk in the woods during the fall and the paths have the leaves piled up by the sides and the path itself is clear?  Well that is what the scrap paper was like behind the parts counter!  We started scooping and hauling, and then we found some checks!  They had never been cashed!  Being we found that they had received the products we sent them through for deposit, and our first profits were made!  Anyway I’ve been running Donahue Harley-Davidson Inc. since then. 

In 2005 we expanded and bought a building in the Brainerd/Baxter area and opened up an Satellite store, which Harley-Davidson refers to as an SRL (service and retail location).  So from a humble store with myself and 2 employees it’s grown to 2 locations with just over 30 employees, and I cannot describe the blessing and burden it is to have this business, and all the awesome employees I have been blessed with, and knowing that my decisions can affect their livelihood is the burden.  This business supports about 28 families!  Hard to believe that I could ever be this successful!  Another one of those things that as I look back I can see God was and is and always will be in control, even when I thought I was! 

And that my friends is how the Donahue's acquired a the Harley-Davidson Dealerships in central Minnesota.

Brett Donahue