Business for a Better World: Tick Tock Clock Repairs

Alex Denno, the owner of Palatine's Tick Tock Clock Repairs, is fond of a saying that is a truism in his industry.

"You have to put time in to fix time," said Denno, in his second year as company owner of the 47-year-old business started by his parents, Jim and Vicky.

What does that mean, exactly?

"You have to love this, or you will not last," he added. "It can test you, patience-wise."

Consider time for a moment. It passes with nary a thought. But hidden in the tissues of time is history, reflected by the clocks that Denno has worked on over the years since he started as an apprentice under his mom when he was 8 years old.

He's maintained and repaired some of the most iconic clocks in the Chicago area, like the grandfather clock at the Village Tavern in Long Grove, at 8 feet tall, the largest mass-produced model in the world.

Grandfather clocks are the business's main specialty, along with cuckoo clocks, and require a steady hand to maintain.

"The slots that the gears sit in, the pivot holes, wear out, and when they wear out, they hit each other unevenly," he said.

The result is time that's just a little bit off.

"We clean them and take them apart," Alex Denno said.

He's worked on another grandfather clock in a room at Northwestern University's law school, along with clocks in law firms at the John Hancock Building downtown. The federal courthouse building nearby had a Seth Thomas clock that Denno was asked to rebuild. He also recently rebuilt Cardinal Blase Cupich's grandfather clock in his residence downtown.

Tick Tock Clock Repairs may very well be the quintessential American family business. Jim Denno apprenticed with a German clock repairer in the mid-1970s and then married Vicky in 1976. They started the business in a closet-sized room in their basement at 342 Hart St. in Palatine.

Vicky Denno had some machinery experience, and together, the couple expanded the business into two rooms in the basement. That eventually led to an addition on the house that allowed for expansion of the basement.

That was in the late 1980s. By 2000, Alex Denno was 8 and began helping around the basement. In high school he was home-schooled, with a workbench next to his mom's, where he would do his schoolwork before transitioning to working on clocks.

"Our benches backed up to one another," Vicky Denno recalled. "During his home schooling, he did a course on the history of clocks."

Sure, there were tough times, perhaps the hardest being the COVID-19 pandemic. But even that had a silver lining.

"It was interesting ... in February and March (2020), the phone was just dead," Alex Denno said. "We had nothing going on. We had a four- or five-month backlog, so it was a blessing in disguise. We hunkered down and eventually caught up.

"When the vaccine came out, I got swamped," he said. "Clocks need to be oiled every two to three years, so I had people who called me and they put me off until last year or even this year."

That's a lot of work, and a lot of concentration, but those are traits that he picked up from his mother and father, along with his favorite catchphrase.

"I put in such long hours, I never see the bed until after midnight," Jim Denno said. "It's a labor of love. I don't look at the clock when I'm working. I have a complete clock shop in my summer home.

"It's my life."

It's his son's, as well.

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