If you’re passing through St. Regis, Mont., it’s hard to not stop. If the billboards advertising huckleberry milkshakes aren’t enough to make you pull in, the look of the place just might. The St. Regis Travel Center’s fun signage promoting its gift shop, restaurant, casino and aquarium are enough to make passersby hit their brakes and go inside.
In 1962, Jack Lincoln purchased an old gift shop and the surrounding property in St. Regis. He added a diner and truckstop with a service station. In 1984, he combined all of the businesses under one roof. When Lincoln passed away in 2001, he left the business to his three children. His daughter, Maureen Bullock, known by most as “Muffy,” bought out her brothers in the first year. Together with her husband, Gary, Muffy runs the St. Regis Travel Center, and they constant tweak the business to attract summer travelers coming and going from nearby vacation destinations.
The Gift of Variety
The Bullocks have taken on a remodeling project about every five years, starting with the restrooms. “It was probably the best move we made,” Gary says, “because we found out quickly how important that was for customers.”
Next they took on the gift shop, expanding it significantly in 2004. Today, St. Regis has 6,000 square feet of gifts from 300 different vendors, 53 of them from Montana. “Anything huckleberry is popular,” Muffy says of the Montana-grown wild berry. “We have pottery made from a woman from Superior, a couple of T-shirt lines out of Missoula, local jewelry, etc.”
The gift shop also has a live trout aquarium that’s been around for 50 years. Originally the aquarium had a live seal pit. That’s gone now, but the remodeled structure includes a place where kids can play. There’s also a big talking bull moose nearby that makes kids laugh. The moose, Huck, tells jokes and explains where you can get a milkshake and a burger.
Adjacent to the gift shop is an ice-cream and espresso shop called Dolly V’s. It stands for Dolly Varden. “If you’re a fisherman,” Gary says, “you’ll know what that means.” (It’s a kind of trout.) And thankfully, many of the travelers who stop by do. Dolly V’s signature item is huckleberry milkshakes, and the travel center sells about 10,000 annually.
Grill Marks
Until 2010, St. Regis also had a family-style restaurant with an extensive menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner. “We felt maybe that concept was becoming dated and we wanted to update our look as well,” Gary says. “We also don’t have a large labor pool around here. To find a cook who could do a full menu was pretty challenging.”
So they simplified the menu, paring it down to what they call “upscale fast food.” Now the restaurant, Huck’s Grill, offers a smaller breakfast menu and hand-pressed Angus beef burgers, along with sandwiches and chicken strips, for lunch. Noon to 3 p.m. is the busiest part of the day. “We try to cater to the traveling family,” Muffy says.
After the remodel, they tried doing counter-service ordering, but customers preferred to be waited on. So they switched back to table service and added a to-go window. Now 40% of restaurant sales are to go. The gift-shop expansion reduced restaurant space and the staffing requirements, but sales volume is back up to what it was before the change.
“We’re pretty tickled with how that’s worked out,” Gary says.
A Good Gamble
The old convenience store had a strange, narrow layout, which the Bullocks have updated. They made it look more modern and upscale, adding wood flooring and a black gondola. The store offers classic c-store items from classic c-store vendors, but some atypical selections offer an opportunity for improved margins.
“People know how much a typical candy bar goes for, but if it’s something they’re not familiar with, you can charge whatever you want,” Gary says.
The c-store also offers deli sandwiches, salads and desserts made fresh in the restaurant kitchen. Sixteen Conoco-branded fueling stations are just outside the c-store doors.
In the middle of the building is a small casino with 14 machines, flat-screen TVs and packaged liquor, a good profit center for St. Regis. “We get a lot of tourists who didn’t know you could do video gambling in Montana,” Gary says. “They’ll drop $2 or $3 in there. The casino just quietly does well for us.”
It’s called Cutthroat Henry’s Casino, branded with a cartoon fish. The Bullocks came up with all the names for each department of their travel center. A local graphic designer has brought their outdoor-character theme to life.
What’s Next
Looking ahead, the Bullocks have more improvement projects planned for the travel center. The women’s restroom was expanded this year to shorten lines; they’re looking to do the same with the men’s restroom soon. They also want to solve congestion problems caused by campers in their parking lot and improve the efficiency of the to-go window at Huck’s.
“Gary also looks for new menu items every year,” Muffy says. “We focus on fewer items but make sure they’re all tasty and high-quality. We know we need to add healthy vegetarian and gluten-free items. We’re watching those trends.”
The site employs about 60 people in the summer season but far fewer during the rest of the year. “It gets pretty sleepy around here in February,” Muffy says.
The Bullocks know the key to their success is teaching their employees to focus on customer service.
“Customers really demand that now,” Muffy says. Complimentary bags of popcorn and friendly smiles make a big impression on customers. “We do our best to give them a little more than they expect.”
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