KitchenAid repair shop in Kansas gains international following, fights throwaway culture

It’s a dreadful universal truth that expensive appliances, while expected to last a lifetime, will probably break down sooner than you expect.

Zach Dinicola — or Mr. Mixer , as he’s better known online — feels that frustration.

“We live in a throwaway society,” Dinicola says to the camera in the video that greets first-time visitors of his TikTok page.

But he offers a solution.

“Here at Mr. Mixer, we’re fighting that throwaway culture, and we’re helping to keep your machines alive and even improve their function.”

Dinicola operates Mr. Mixer, a five-person KitchenAid mixer repair business, out of Augusta. And, like the mixers he repairs, his company has a multitude of functions.

On top of fixing his clients’ broken appliances, Dinicola invents products to improve the function of KitchenAids, restores and sells used mixers, and churns out content for his more than 600,000 TikTok followers.

In fact, his social media following is the heartbeat of the business, Dinicola said.

“We understand that what drives this business are the videos and the content that I’m producing,” he said.

Dinicola’s passion and inspiration for the repair business is twofold. For environmental reasons, he wants to keep usable appliances out of landfills when possible.

And for economic reasons, repairs are usually much cheaper than buying a brand-new mixer.

That’s why he taught himself to fix up appliances — out of necessity.

“I was like, ‘OK, these are my finances. This is what I can afford,’” Dinicola said. “‘And if I want this luxury still, I’m going to have to fix it myself. I can’t go buy a new one.’”

Dinicola grew up in Rose Hill, where he picked up his handiness from his dad, who worked in construction. After high school, he became a paramedic.

On a whim, in 2017, Dinicola bought a KitchenAid mixer at a yard sale, fixed it and resold it. That’s when he started considering whether mixer repairs could yield a potential business — because the KitchenAid brand retains its value over time and the mixer’s parts are sold individually.

In 2020, Dinicola formally created a company, leaving his paramedic job behind. His wife started supporting the family financially, as Dinicola didn’t draw a paycheck from the business for the first three and a half years.

At first, customers trickled in. But what really blew up Mr. Mixer was TikTok.

One of his first viral videos in 2020 — which demonstrated a small trick to prevent the head of a KitchenAid mixer from coming loose — received more than a million views.

Since then, he’s spent a lot of time building up his following, with tutorials on how to fix mixers to stories about ancient KitchenAids. He even shared videos after his home in Andover was damaged by a tornado in 2022, letting viewers into the personal and devastating aftermath.

His candor and genuine connection with his followers paid off.

“Once you do that for a while, and you kind of instill trust within your community, they support you, right?” Dinicola said. “So now, anytime there’s a video of like a mixer on any of the social media, people are like tagging me or saying, ‘You need to see Mr. Mixer. You need to go see Mr. Mixer.’

“So, yeah, I don’t have to do any advertising. People advertise for me.”

Even though Mr. Mixer’s office sits down the street from Augusta’s small downtown, Dinicola’s social media presence ensures the business is part of the global economy. At close to 40,000 orders in the past four years, Mr. Mixer has received broken KitchenAids from every state and shipped parts worldwide.

“We ship … a fair amount to like Australia and Iceland and Greenland, the UK,” Dinicola said. “I’ve even shipped stuff to, like, Iran before.”

Cynthia Wohlschlaeger lives in Michigan. She’s followed Dinicola online since at least 2022. She kept checking the refurbished KitchenAid mixers offered on Dinicola’s website and finally found one this year in her price range: a cherry red option for $450.

“I’ve been watching his videos for years and watching how he takes such good care of everybody’s mixers that he’s fixing,” Wohlschlaeger said. “And he does a really great job. And you can tell … he’s honest and he’s caring.”

Dinicola also outfits the refurbished KitchenAids with the different products he’s invented. That includes the Everdime , one of his first inventions. The round rubber piece is meant to stop the paddle from chipping against the bowl’s bottom.

Another item, called a “ love handle ,” helps KitchenAid users more easily pick up the machine.

Like many small-business owners, Dinicola wants to see Mr. Mixer grow. He’d like a bigger facility, perhaps one with a gym for his employees.

He wants to manufacture more products. And he’s doing it all while supporting his two kids and wife, who now works for the company.

But he says a central goal is to improve his family’s — and employees’ — financial situation.

“I would love to make it to where I’m the one person in my family who changes where my family is at in terms of finances, right?” Dinicola said. “Because we’ve always been middle class … even lower-middle class, maybe.

“I want my kids to understand the value of a dollar. … But I also don’t necessarily want them to endure the struggles that myself or my parents have endured.”