PHOTO GALLERY: Inside Stinker Stores' Largest Location to Date
CALDWELL, Idaho — Thirteen miles from the Oregon state border, the new Stinker Travel Center is a unique kind of "Welcome to Idaho" sign for professional drivers and traveling families. It is the largest store to date for Boise, Idaho-based Stinker Stores Inc. and boasts many unique features and services compared to one of the chain’s standard convenience stores.
The site, located on Interstate 84 and Black Canyon Road in Caldwell, represents Stinker’s first scrape-and-rebuild for a truck stop/travel plaza.
"Since we’ve mostly grown through acquisition, the other truck stops and travel plazas in our network were not designed by the Stinker team," Billy Colemire, the retailer's vice president of marketing and brand, told Convenience Store News. "We saw this as an excellent opportunity to design not only a store, but an entire property to serve as an oasis between Ontario, Ore., and Boise, Idaho."
The larger concept came about in a unique manner: the store manager for the site was the first to recognize the property's potential. She relayed that to her district manager and the two of them took the initiative to put a business plan together. They presented it to senior leadership and ownership. From there, the idea caught fire, according to Colemire.
"There is something very special about team members with such varied backgrounds, roles and years of service collaborating cross-functionally to bring something like this to fruition," he stated proudly.
The company currently operates six truck stops and travel plazas, but it doesn't necessarily subscribe to the "bigger is better" mantra when it comes to store size or assortment. "Rather, we believe that every opportunity must be properly evaluated, such that we can determine how to best serve both the needs of our customers and team members," Colemire said. In this case, it made sense to rebuild due to the site's original customer base, its easy access from I-84, and the lack of food and grocery options in the vicinity.
The 10,000-square-foot travel center opened in September 2024. Its primary customers are professional drivers and travelers. However, there are a lot of smaller, rural towns in the area, most of which could be considered a food desert, meaning residents face barriers to accessing fresh, healthy and affordable food, and they are typically more than one mile away from a supermarket and often have a poverty rate of 20% or higher.
"It's very important for Stinker to provide key resources for these bedroom and farm communities, just like for our driving segments," Colemire stressed.
To that end, the new site boasts among other amenities:
- Expanded general merchandise offerings, showcasing one-of-a-kind items from local and regional vendors
- A large Pete's Eats open-concept kitchen
- Comfortable booth and table seating inside, as well as a large community table
- A bulk "Candy Corner" featuring Jelly Belly products exclusively
- A large laundry room, including folding tables and chairs
- Deluxe showers
- A shady park with mature trees and a dog run
- Patio and park seating outside
- Easily accessible and expanded fueling options
- RV lanes on the trucking island offering diesel exhaust fluid (DEF)
Seating capacity at the site has been enhanced significantly, both inside and out. "We understand the need for our customers to be comfortable at all points of a visit and believe the multiple seating options enhance the setting and encourage them to hang around for a while," Colemire explained.
Food Theater
During the pandemic, the retailer capitalized on some slower-than-normal periods to fully reinvent its fresh food and dispensed beverage offerings. "Over the past four years, we have invested greatly in becoming known as a food and beverage destination," said Colemire.
The interior focal point of the travel center is the Pete's Eats open-concept kitchen. Although most of the food is served via grab-and-go warmers and coolers, and customers are not ordering from kiosks, all items are made fresh onsite throughout the day.
[Read more: C-store Retailers Sharpen Their Competitive Edge in Grab & Go]
"The open-concept kitchen is key for us as we see this as an opportunity to showcase the 'theater of food.' Our customers get to see the teams cracking fresh eggs, cracking sea salt and pepper, all while being able to engage and ask them how their morning is going," Colemire said. "Bringing the fresh-food operations out of a kitchen in the back of house has been tremendous in terms of the way we convey the freshness of our program to our customers."
While the size of the kitchen is much larger at this Stinker site, the most notable difference pertains to the orientation and layout. "We needed to make sure the kitchen was large enough to support growing sales. However, another top priority was making sure it was visible from all entry points as we believe our Pete's Eats fresh food program is a differentiator for the brand," he added.
The kitchen cabinetry and millwork were designed to span an almost 90-degree angle to ensure sight lines from all doors. "We were very thoughtful when laying out the equipment as well to ensure customers could always see our employees making fresh food, but also so that our food teams could actively engage with customers as they approach the area," Colemire continued.
Additional design elements throughout the travel center include high ceilings with exposed beams and duct work; low-profile and lit gondolas for easy and clean sight lines; barnwood above all the cooler and freezer doors, including lit wayfinding signs so that customers can easily find the item they stopped in for; two DIRECTV screens where customers can enjoy sports, news and weather while inside the store; and seven digital screens showcasing menus, promotions and more.
Along with its fresh-food investments, Stinker also debuted fresh-squeezed orange juice at this location and has since rolled out the product to 30 additional sites.
Cross-Training & Communication
When operating travel centers, everything is on a much grander scale, but there is also a nuance, Colemire told CSNews. "With added services such as deluxe showers, laundry and the dog run and park, additional tasks must be completed regularly to ensure the store and property are in optimal condition for our customers at all times," he said.
The labor required can be a challenge. Some of the roles are more specialized than in other stores, so it can take longer to match the best candidate with the best role. The company has addressed this by partnering its operations and human resources teams, encouraging them to work closely together and proactively plan for any potential challenges.
"Through great communication and cross-training when appropriate, these challenges can be mitigated on the front end," Colemire expressed.
Moving forward, this site will play an important role in the company's growth plans as Stinker intends to incorporate various aspects of the new format into its existing truck stops and travel plazas where it makes sense. The chain does not, however, currently have any other sites of this size under consideration for redevelopment.
"We are still a bit early to make any drastic changes to the next version of this store format, but we will continue to ask and learn from both our store teams and customers," Colemire said.