New Dad's Travel Center plans Oct. 7 opening

Dad's Travel Center General Manager Kevin Bird outside the new store scheduled to open a week from Monday.

The new Dad's Travel Center at Hitt Road and North Yellowstone is scheduled to open Oct. 7.

The center has 16 gasoline/diesel pumps and two extra high-speed diesel pump, said Kevin Bird, general manager for Dad's. Located on 47 acres, there is a 3,250-square-foot convenience store.

Bird said the plan has been all along to build a travel center on Hitt Road. Dad's moved in to a smaller store in 2003 to get a feel for the location, and was ready to move five years ago when the economy went in the tank. With their 10-year lease due to expire and the economy improving, they finally decided last year to develop the land.

It has been a big project. Making room for the store, the pumps and the parking lot they moved 871 dump trucks of topsoil. Landscaping is due to take place next week before they open. When finished, there will be areas for picnicking.

In the store, they are offering Champ's chicken, a brand that started in Auxvasse, Mo., in 1999 and now has more than 500 locations in the United States. They will also have pizza by the slice, baked onsite, from a well-known take-and-bake operator. They will have Reed's Dairy ice cream by the scoop and also be an outlet for Reed's Dairy products.

The store and the pumps are all lit by LED lighting, which is more expensive but brighter and more cost-efficient over the long haul, Bird said.

Natural Grocers now hiring, plans Nov. 12 opening in Idaho Falls

It's hard to miss something as big and purple as the Natural Grocers store being built in Idaho Falls.

Natural Grocers, a 58-year-old chain based in Colorado, has set Nov. 12 as the opening date for its 15,000-square-foot store on 17th Street, said Nancy Flynn, spokeswoman for the company.

In addition to the store, the developer, Leadership Circle, LLC, of Montrose, Colo., is seeking eventually to build a restaurant and a retail store on the 4.42 acres, but the only definite plans at the moment are for the grocery. The 4,816 square-foot-restaurant pad and 11,250-square-foot retail pad are listed with Randy Waters of Sperry Van Ness High Desert.

Natural Grocers has stores in 12 states, with six more scheduled to open this year. In 2011 it opened stores in Boise and Missoula, and most recently it opened a store in Helena, in December.

"We really cater to specialty diets, gluten-free, non GMO (genetically modified organisms)," Flynn said. Because of their small footprint (a Whole Foods store, by contrast, is typically twice the size) and their emphasis on personal communication and education rather than advertising, they are able to keep their costs down. "We feel like we're the label-readers in the market," Flynn said.

When it opens, the store will employ around 25 people. All the produce they sell is USDA-certified organic, and Flynn said they buy local produce "every chance we get."

 

The company's Web site is www.naturalgrocers.com.

Whitewater Grill plans opening Monday, Sept. 30

Whitewater Grill chef Joel Henry

The new, totally redone Whitewater Grill is set to open Monday, a little later than originally forecast but Chef Joel Henry says it will be worth the wait.

"I wanted it to be the way I wanted," he said. Excluding the kitchen, the restaurant has been remodeled from front to back. "We wanted to modernize it without making it cold," he said. Paintings, photos and sculpture by local artists such as Elise Wilding are on the walls.

At the front, there is a dessert and espresso bar, in the middle a tap bar and lounge, in the back an 1,800-square-foot banquet and meeting room. Next spring he plans to build a deck on the roof that will increase maximum occupancy from 140 to about 170.

Henry, 32, grew up in Traverse City, Mich., and it was there he became executive chef of Poppycock's, a local restaurant, at age 21. He attended the Johnson and Wales College of Culinary Arts in Providence, R.I., but thinks there is no substitute for working in an actual restaurant kitchen.

"I believe in old-school no-frills cooking," he said. No-frills doesn't mean no imagination, however. "If you're not creative enough, there's no reason to be doing what you're doing," he said. The new Whitewater menu will feature what Henry calls casual contemporary American food.

Hours will be 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 11 a.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday; and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday, with brunch from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

To contact him, e-mail whitewatergrill208@gmail.com. To find Whitewater Grill on Facebook, follow this link: https://www.facebook.com/whitewatergrill208.

Cramer appointed to be next Idaho Falls planning and building director

Brad Cramer

The Idaho Falls City Council has appointed Brad Cramer the city's planning and building director. The appointment will become effective Nov. 1, when Renee Magee retires.

Cramer has been with the city since 2006. A graduate of Hillcrest High School, he holds a bachelor's degree from Idaho State University in international studies and a master's from ISU in public administration.

Coming into the job, he said his top priorities will be updating some of the divisions codes and ordinances and making them more user friendly for the public, looking at ways to revitalize older neighborhoods and the central business district, and finding ways to continue to make Idaho Falls a premier place to live and do business. As the new Mayor and Council members come into office he will be working to understand their priorities and goals for the city, he said.

He and his wife, Michelle, have four children, two boys and two girls, ages 8, 6, 3 and 9 month.

Tacoma Screw Products pours foundation for store on North Yellowstone

Workers at the future site of Tacoma Screw Products on North Yellowstone in Idaho Falls.

Tacoma Screw Products, a 66-year-old company with 16 stores in the Pacific Northwest, is busy laying the foundation for its new Idaho Falls store, which will be about 10,000 square feet and similar to the company's stores in Boise and Twin Falls.

Company President John Wolfe said he knew very little about Idaho Falls before looking into the market out as a possible store location, but that he has been "impressed a lot by the upscale nature of development in the area."

Tacoma Screw Products' customer base includes retail, manufacturing, construction, transportation, aerospace, maritime, agricultural, food processing, recreational, institutional operations, and city, county, state, and federal governmental agencies. When customers need custom or special fasteners that are oversized, require special threading or bending, the company has a machine shop to fabricate them.

The company typically employs three or four people to work in a store and three or four people to handle outside sales.

Here's a link to a story about the company that ran last fall in the Tacoma News Tribune: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/10/28/2347441/tacoma-screw-broadens-its-sales.html.

And here's the link to their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/tacomascrew