Today's owner of the Route General Store is John Pritchard even though it was not him who build it. He only bought the store in 1998 to fill it with all the historic stuff he collected when having travelled the Route66. So it is not that his motivation for re-opening was building a souvenier shop or to earn money.He did it to avoid the "Ghost of Route66's Past" to be buried in oblivion.

He's managing the store to "hang around", listening to Rock'N'Roll and meeting nice people while enjoying life itself, as you can see in this small,following documentary(including an interview).