Just so Fresh

This article is part of the Shoshone News-Press Then and Now special section that appeared in the Friday, July 30 print edition. Copies of this edition can be purchased at the News-Press office in Osburn.

KELLOGG — There are several things every town needs that attract people to that community — a grocery store is one of those things.

Yoke’s Fresh Market has been a staple of Kellogg and the surrounding community for more than four decades.

In 1946, Marshall and Harriet Yoke opened their first store, a small 2,500-square-foot store in Deer Park, Wash., and their son Chuck took that business and expanded it into the 17-store chain that exists today.

Originally opened in 1979, by Chuck Yoke, the 20,000-square-foot Kellogg store was part of his vision of a warehouse market and was one of the first grocery stores in the area to add a full-service deli, and then later a pharmacy and floral departments.

It’s a story of perseverance, staying true to their business model, and a desire to serve that has led Yoke’s Fresh Market surviving and thriving for the last 42 years.

Everett Jennings has been with Yoke’s for 27 years, including the last 15 at the Kellogg location.

During that time, he’s experienced the highs and lows of operating a local grocery store, recessions, expansions, major corporations, snow storms and even heat waves, but through it all he’s been proud to be a part of a company that focuses so much time and effort into their communities.

They’ve gone through a few different names and face lifts over the years, Yoke’s, Yoke’s Pac n’Save, Yoke’s Foods, before settling on their current name, which Jennings got to be a part of establishing.

“In 2002, I was actually helping open a new store in Mead, Wash. That was the first store to operate under the Yoke’s Fresh Market moniker,” Jennings said. “Our store here, being fairly small and out of the way, still had some of the shelving from the original store, some from the newer remodels. But we’ve now updated everything to fit the current look that all of our other stores have.”

Jennings even said that the business still receives a few bills under some of their older names.

Through the years, the company served as one of two grocery stores in Kellogg and while there may have been some competition, the two were able to coexist for several years.

But then in the mid-2000s — major retailer Walmart came to town and it initiated a fight for survival.

“Right after Walmart came in, both of us were struggling,” Jennings recalled. “It was almost like, who is gonna hang around and weather it? We knew one of us was going to make it, but there was no way both of us were going to.”

Yoke’s took a page from their bigbox competitor and made an in-game adjustment of sorts, one that stabilized their business in Kellogg and put them in position to be the Kellogg-based store that survived the initial struggles that came with Walmart’s opening.

“We had had a record year, the year before Walmart arrived,” Jennings said. “Then we did the remodel that added the pharmacy right as Walmart opened and the pharmacy business really held us in there — and helped us to make it through. Now I think that the rest of the store has caught up.”

Jennings knows that it would have been easy for his bosses to pull the plug on their Kellogg store and focus their efforts somewhere else, but instead it was the exact opposite that happened and Yoke’s stuck around — much to the benefit of the community.

“The company had to help us out, they believed that we could come back to where we were before Walmart,” Jennings said.

There is no disillusionment on the part of Jennings or his staff at the store, he knows that people want to save as much money as possible while getting the most quality for their buck.

He also knows that for some, there is a sense of holiday that comes with leaving the Silver Valley and going to the bustling metro area that is Coeur d’Alene and even Spokane.

But he’s still confident that what Yoke’s offers is bigger than the once-a-month destination trip shoppers.

“Hey, I know we are going to have the people who treat going over the hill as their big outing,” Jennings said. “But I also know that people are loyal, and they know where they feel comfortable spending their money and I think we fill that need for a lot of people.”

Yoke’s was well on its way to surviving, but they have had some fortuitous help along the way as well.

Silver Mountain went from being a one-day stop and ski type of hill, to a massive vacation destination complete with condos, a waterpark, development and cultivation as a mountain biking destination, and full list of summer events and activities.

This has brought hundreds of thousands of people through the Kellogg area, many of whom stay in the condos themselves, or various bed and breakfast-style lodging that gives them the opportunity to craft their own meals instead of depending solely on restaurants.

“It used to be in just the winter time with all of the skiers, but now with all of the mountain biking and events going, I’ve had some of our regular customers tell me that they can tell when there is something going on based on how busy we are.”

Yoke’s employs 45 people when they are fully staffed, including 43 full-time positions, this is part of the uniqueness that comes with the store — it acts as one of Shoshone County’s largest employers and offers a very progressive benefit to its employees.

“I think what makes Yoke’s unique is that we’re 100% employee owned,” Jennings explained. “We have an employee stock ownership plan (or ESOP), all of the shares are owned by either current or former employees — so if somebody leaves the company and decides to cash out their shares, those shares are immediately redistributed throughout the company to all of the employees. I think this gives our employees a reason to promote where they work. We like to hope that because of this, our employees promote the business and carry themselves in a way that reflects that they work for a company that takes care of them and values them.”

Jennings hopes that when a question or an issue arises, his employees operate under a ‘how can I do this’ mentality and not a ‘do I have to do this’ thought process.

Yoke’s also maintains a very active presence in the communities that they serve, generously donating both funds and items to the local charitable organizations and nonprofits, including things locally like the new scoreboards at Kellogg High School and Teeters Field, being a sponsor of the annual Silver Hoops 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament, and working closely with both local chambers of commerce.

The store recently completed a massive remodel, relocating their pharmacy area, replacing several freezers, updating the deli, adding a full wine section, and spectacular new beer run.

Obviously, having a smaller store, instead of one of the 50,000-square-foot buildings that some of the other Yoke’s occupy, can make it tough to carry everything that a customer could want or need, but Jennings and his crew do the best that they can for their customers, including ordering some things upon request.

“We try to offer as much as we can with the space that we have,” Jennings said. “There is a lot more stuff that we’d like to offer, but we can only carry so much.”

That’s the long version though.

The short version is pretty easy to understand.

“We sell groceries,” Jennings said, “people have to eat.”