Get and Go Gourmet convenient alternative
In terms of shopping, North Idaho might be characterized as on the dull edge of change.
Just this spring Coeur d’Alene got its first drive-through convenience store, but similar stores have been selling bread, milk and beer for at least 20 years in other parts of the United States – and that includes North Dakota!
Michelle Dial, owner of Get and Go Gourmet, at 270 E. Neider Ave., says that before she opened her business, she investigated similar enterprises in her native Texas, as well as Arizona and California.
Her current store won’t be her last, she says. Buoyed by the success of her five-month-old business which, she says, gets about 125 drive-throughs per day, she’ll open a similar store, either next summer or in spring 2007. That one will be on Lake Coeur d’Alene Drive across from the Coeur d’Alene Resort golf course entrance.
What’s up with a drive-through store?
“It’s convenient, fast and the staff is incredibly friendly,” says NIC student Dan DiPerma.
He powers up each morning at Get and Go with a Large Monster energy drink and also shops for basic foodstuffs just by pointing at the butter or milk shelf.
“It’s usually a circus at regular grocery stores,” he said. “It’s just not worth the hassle if you’re only going to be getting a pound of butter.”
Realtor Dan Brockway, who sold Dial the property two years ago, is also a customer because “I get top-notch service, and Michelle serves gourmet foods,” he said
Kelly Holcomb, who moved here after retiring from a Southern California police department in 1984, says the store’s prices are competitive, the food selection is excellent, shopping is easy, “and the quiches are just outstanding.”
Obviously, Dial offers more than off-the-shelf items. She’s a graduate of a Cordon Bleu cooking school in Portland and she fixes lunches and desserts to go, baked fresh daily in her store’s kitchen.
A sampling from her menu includes grilled salmon marinated in lime and soy sauce, a shrimp and avocado salad and “bread pudding, made with fresh artisan breads, raisins and nuts with an accompanying cream sauce with a touch of orange liqueur.”
With a menu like that it’s no surprise that Dial is also a caterer. Her customers include car dealers, real estate firms, several physicians and a medical supply house, she said.
She’s proud, too, that even though their store sells hot lunches, many of her noontime customers are employees of the Costco store across the street.
She plans to expand that part of the business into ready-made dinners to go, “but the freezers and coolers we need for that are somewhere in Mississippi, tied up by Hurricane Katrina,” she said.
Dial, who is single, says her mother, Jimmie discovered Coeur d’Alene when she drove through 10 years ago on her way from Texas to a job in Seattle.
“She told me what a beautiful area it is, and when she retired she moved here. I followed her six years ago.”
Her typical customers, Dial said, are folks in a hurry, working in a bit of shopping during their lunch hours or on the way home. “They don’t want to unload the whole car, kids and dogs maybe, just to buy a gallon of milk.”
Her regular customers drive through her store’s 14-foot doors about twice per week. Without leaving their cars, they indicate the groceries or beverages they require and Dial or one of her four employees – one of them her mother – fetches the goods. As they pass through the exit, they pay with cash or credit or debit cards.
Dial said the store stocks 137 wines, most from the Northwest but she also carries some California and French vintages. Other Idaho and Washington brands include Monarch Mountain Coffee from Sandpoint, Sun Valley Gold and Blonde beers and Coeur d’Alene Brewery beers.