KIPLING — The new Borderland Co-op convenience store and gas bar in Kipling opened its doors to the public last week, giving locals and travellers their first taste of the new store.
“We didn’t do a grand opening, we did a little ‘friends and family’ test run on Sunday (Oct. 6), just to make sure systems were working and that we felt confident enough that we could open,” explained Borderland Co-op CEO, Jason Schenn.
“All went well on Sunday afternoon for a few hours, and then we opened up the doors on Monday.”
The intention of the soft opening was not to overwhelm the 16 new staff members, giving them a chance to ease into busier times ahead.
“We didn’t want them to be overwhelmed straight out of the gate, so we gave them a little bit of time to let people hear about it through the grapevine, rather than going out and make a huge splash,” Schenn said. “As the word’s gotten out, we certainly got busier and busier over there, and we’re pretty happy with the way things are going so far.”
Kipling Mayor Pat Jackson was one of the locals who got a first preview of the new store and was hopeful for what the new business will mean for Kipling.
“Anything that is going to enhance the experience of our local people, but also anyone going through is a positive,” she said.
The store will be open seven days a week from 6 am to 9 pm Monday through Saturday, then 10 am to 8 pm on Sunday.
“That’s a lot of hours to fill, and hopefully that demand is there for us to keep going with that,” Schenn said. “But that’s where we’re coming out of the gate at right now.”
A 24-hour card lock is also available with a unique feature that isn’t quite common everywhere just yet.
“The unique thing about this card lock is it’s part of a new generation of equipment that’s starting to roll out in our system which actually allows for people to use their credit card on it rather than our own customer card lock,” Schenn said. “So people are travelling up and down the highway and don’t have a co-op card lock, they can still utilize our card lock with their Visa or Mastercard. This is a new generation of reader that’s coming out that has the card payment option, and it’s very new.”
Schenn said that the Whitewood location was the pilot site for the new card lock system, which is anticipated to become more common at Co-op locations through 2025.
“We were able to get Kipling on this one right away, too, rather than having installed equipment and get rid of it right away,” he said. “It’s in its infancy, and we expect it to keep growing as the network grows, and people are aware that that’s available to them.”
Hot food available
Another feature of the Kipling store is the hot food options, including Co-op’s brand of fried chicken. Brought in fresh daily and prepared in the on-site kitchen, Schenn says, “It’s as close to a homemade meal as you’re going to be able to get in a grab-and-go situation.”
He’s admittedly also a big fan of the tasty treats.
“I can’t go by them without stopping and getting some tenders or some wedges! It’s great stuff,” said Schenn. “It’s pretty popular, and it’s reasonably priced, too. You can feed a family for $30—it’s hard to do that these days.”
The focus on serving fresh, hot food fills a gap in the local market as Schenn pointed out.
“In Kipling, there are not a lot of options after six o’clock for food,” he said. “I think that’s kind of a niche for us, that we’re going to be able to fill a void that doesn’t exist right now for the community.”
Aside from the chicken, hot tables will feature a variety of warm foods.
“That’s kind of unique to this one—we have a lot of programs in some of our other sites as well, but this one probably has the most programs within it—and a bigger kitchen,” Schenn said. “Just some things that we’ve learned over our last few projects that we’ve done where we’ve added chicken or other hot and fresh kind of programming.”
New site was on time and may come in under budget
During the planning stages of the Kipling project, the two-pump, four-lane gas bar plus 3,000-square-foot convenience store was expected to cost around $4.5 million. This included all petroleum assets, computer equipment, and associated costs that go along with a new build. Schenn believes the Kipling store will come in under the expected price tag.
“I think we’re actually going to end up coming in a little under budget,” he confirmed. “I’m hoping to know more on that next week. There’s still a couple of things that we got to fix up— some contracts and that—but for the most part, we know what the numbers are going to be, and it’s just a matter of crunching the last little bits here and seeing where we actually sit compared to the budget. I think we’re on track to be under the budget, which is tremendous. You don’t hear that very often these days. That’s a testament to our crew that we’ve got internally, that kind of quarterbacked this whole project.”
This is the sixth C-Store in the region that Borderland Co-op serves. Actual construction went fairly smoothly, aside from some early-summer rain delays that temporarily shut down several projects in general throughout the province.
“Ideally, it would have been nicer to be into September when we opened, but there were a few rain weeks that you can’t do anything about when you’re doing groundwork,” Schenn said. “That put us behind a little bit, but overall, we’re happy with where we are. We’re in business, and there’s still some nice weather ahead of us, and we can get some kinks worked out before the snow flies and the weather turns cold.”
