Express Mart

This vital little motha-​ship has been fully operational. just off of HWY 30 on the South end of Scappoose, just behind the U-​Haul, since August of ’11. It is a tribute to the ingenuity of its owners/​operators— Kevin and Denise Whitney — as well as to the age-​old formula for success in America, where success = $…:
$ = (Hard work + innovation + stick-​to-​it-​ive-​ness + «just being willing to be the one to show up, day after day after day…») x time
As much as I want to properly reward these folks for their originality with 5 stars, there are two glaring omissions in the current business plan:
1.) Off the beaten path. Most motorists on HWY 30 are blowing through town; Scappoose is neither their stopping nor starting point. It takes something a little extra to get more people to be willing to pull off the main thorough-​fare for a few groceries or a cold-​six-​packy…
2.) One of the most obvious «little extras» mentioned in #1 would be GAS. Again, a huge chunk of potential business is the traffic blowing by (and doing so, hopefully saving lives at a sensible 50mph or less). They need a good REASON to swing by the mother-​ship.
Few people realize this, but the 7 – 11 down on Swan Island used to have a near-​full service drive through. Actually, the drive through is still intact; you can still circumnavigate the score from the comfort of your sweet ride. But they haven’t used the drive through in any capacity since the very early 90s. I still can’t understand why they shut it down, though I remember the clerks at the time griping about how much work it was — - I thought the whole point was to provide a service/​convenience for the CUSTOMERS, not the hired help! In sum, they gave up entirely too soon on what was clearly a winning formula. People used that drive through all the time! My friends and I went out of our way to use it!
…Which in retrospect, weakens my argument #1 above somewhat – if your service/​convenience is sufficiently cool/​innovative, some people WILL go out of their way for it, but it does help to have extra enticements— like Big Gulp or slurpee machines. Or petrol…
Keep on with it, Whitneys! Learn from the grievous error of the Swan Island 7−11−−−− DON’T GIVE UP!!!