Owner, Abraxi Taxi | St. Augustine Taxi Service | Local Transportation Since 2008
What nearly two decades behind the wheel taught me about transportation, technology, and the value of answering the phone
September 27, 2026
By Steven C., Owner of Abraxi Taxi
When I started Abraxi Taxi in St. Augustine in 2008, nobody climbed into my cab and asked whether I had an app.
They asked a much simpler question:
“Can you get me there?”
Usually, the answer was yes.
Nearly two decades later, transportation has changed dramatically. Smartphones replaced dispatch radios. Algorithms replaced much of the conversation. Uber and Lyft taught millions of people that getting a ride should begin with staring at a little car moving around a screen.
Abraxi Taxi went in a different direction.
We remained a taxi company.
And, strangely enough, that has become one of the things that makes us different.
Before Every Business Needed an App
For years, the taxi business wasn’t particularly complicated from the customer’s point of view.
You called.
A human being answered.
You said where you were.
You said where you were going.
We sent a cab.
There were plenty of things happening behind the scenes—drivers, dispatching, insurance, maintenance, licensing, traffic and the occasional passenger who was absolutely certain his hotel was “next to that restaurant with the palm tree.”
This is Florida.
That narrows it down to approximately 40,000 locations.
But somehow we found them.
Technology eventually promised to make all of this easier, and in many ways it did.
Abraxi even had an app for a while.
Eventually, I stopped paying for it.
That wasn’t because technology is bad. Technology has made running a small business easier in countless ways. Our customers carry maps, credit cards, cameras, restaurant guides and communication devices in their pockets.
But somewhere along the way, businesses started confusing technology with service.
They’re not the same thing.
Sometimes You Need a Human Being
Suppose you leave your phone in a taxi.
With Abraxi, there’s a rather sophisticated piece of technology available to solve this problem.
It’s called another telephone.
Call us.
A person answers.
We can contact the driver and try to find your phone.
The same thing applies when plans change, when you aren’t quite sure where you’re standing, when Grandma needs a little extra time getting to the car, or when you want to know what a ride is going to cost.
Sometimes an app is convenient.
Sometimes you need a person.
We’ve decided there’s still room in the world for the second option.
Consistent Pricing in an Algorithmic World
Technology also changed how transportation is priced.
Today, the price of a ride can depend on demand, traffic, weather, an event ending, the number of available drivers and whatever else an algorithm happens to be considering.
Abraxi uses flat and zone-based pricing rather than surge pricing.
St. Augustine gets busy. Very busy.
Concerts empty out. Weddings end. Bars close. Festivals fill downtown. Nights of Lights can make our little city look as though somebody invited half of Florida over without asking where they were going to park.
Demand goes up.
Our philosophy is that this doesn’t suddenly make the same stretch of pavement twice as long.
Straightforward pricing may seem old-fashioned.
We’re comfortable with that.
Local Knowledge Is Still Technology We Haven’t Replaced
GPS is remarkable.
I use it.
But GPS doesn’t live here.
After years of driving St. Augustine and St. Johns County, you learn things that don’t always fit neatly into an algorithm.
You learn what happens when the Bridge of Lions goes up.
You learn which streets become miserable during major events.
You learn that the route that looks shortest on a screen isn’t necessarily the route that’s going to get a passenger there with the least aggravation.
You learn the hotels, restaurants, neighborhoods, beaches and venues.
And when somebody visiting St. Augustine asks:
“Where should we eat?”
I don’t need to wait for an advertisement to load.
That’s part of what I mean when I say:
Local knowledge comes standard.
We Tried the App Thing
I should probably confess something before somebody digs through the digital attic and discovers it.
Abraxi Taxi once had an app.
There. I said it.
We tried it.
Eventually, maintaining an app stopped making sense for the kind of company we are.
We’re not trying to build a worldwide transportation platform. We’re trying to provide good transportation in St. Augustine and St. Johns County.
There’s an important difference.
I don’t need Abraxi Taxi operating in 400 cities.
I need the phone answered here.
Local Money Has an Address
There’s another difference between a local transportation company and a multinational platform that doesn’t get discussed very often.
We live here.
The money a local company earns doesn’t simply disappear into some distant corporate structure.
We buy fuel here. We repair vehicles here. We eat here. We hire people here. We buy goods and services here. We pay other local businesses.
Abraxi’s customers aren’t data points on a national map.
They’re neighbors, hotel guests, restaurant workers, tourists, bartenders, brides, concertgoers, retirees, business owners and people trying to get to work on Tuesday morning.
Some I’ve driven for years.
That’s what happens when you stay in one place long enough.
This Isn’t an Anti-App Manifesto
Uber and Lyft changed transportation.
Millions of people use them because they’re convenient. Competition can be good for customers, and people should choose whichever transportation service works for them.
Abraxi doesn’t need to pretend otherwise.
But technology didn’t eliminate the value of a local taxi company any more than DoorDash eliminated restaurants.
Sometimes people want another choice.
They want to know approximately what they’re paying.
They want somebody who knows the city.
They want a telephone number.
And every once in a while, they want to talk to an actual human being.
We’re happy to be that option.
Still Here
When Abraxi started in 2008, I couldn’t have predicted what transportation would look like almost twenty years later.
I certainly couldn’t have predicted that one day not having an app would become part of the company’s personality.
But here we are.
The technology changed.
The competition changed.
St. Augustine changed.
Abraxi changed, too.
But the basic job never did.
Someone needs a ride.
Someone answers the phone.
Someone shows up.
Someone gets them where they need to go.
Maybe that’s old-fashioned.
We’re okay with that.
Want to know more about the people and local perspective behind this site? Read About AbraxiTaxi.org.
