Drive-through store to open

SANDPOINT — When the City Council briefly toyed with the idea of banning drive-through businesses in Sandpoint, its members learned one important lesson: Sandpoint residents love their drive-throughs.

Drive-through aficionados will soon have another business to frequent with the opening of Express Lane, the area’s first convenience store catering solely to drive-through customers.

The brains behind the business is Adrian Cox, president of Sandpoint’s AGC Enterprises. After learning of similar stores cropping up in Texas, the East Coast and a few Idaho communities, Cox decided he wanted to introduce the idea to Sandpoint residents.

“It’s just a newer concept that’s slowly evolving and catching on,” he said.

Unlike traditional convenience stores, Express Lane will not have a parking lot and standard entrance, but will instead usher cars inside the building, where store employees will take orders, accept money and send drivers on their way out the other side.

The store will primarily stock beverages — both alcoholic and non alcoholic — but will carry a small assortment of other grocery items, such as eggs and bread, Cox said.

“It’s all based on speed,” he said. “One of the reasons we’ll have a limited selection is to keep things moving fast. Everything is designed to be quick. We’ve got Internet-based credit card processing because it saves about 10 seconds on the transaction. Everything is made to be extremely fast.”

Cox has been planning the store for years, and said it is purely coincidental that a similar store, owned by Dairy Depot’s Jay Van Den Berg, is in the process of being built on the north side of town. While he sees the drive-through idea as a growing trend, Cox said between Express Lane and Van Den Berg’s store, the drive-through convenience store market will be tapped

“Whether his and ours can both be successful, I think there’s a fair chance of that,” he said. “But I would say Sandpoint would be maxed, maxed, maxed on convenient stores after that.”

Located at 214 Florence Ave., Express Lane will be open seven days per week from 6 a.m.-10 p.m. Cox is hoping to have the store open by Aug. 14.