Silver Valley enjoying new Domino's Pizza

KELLOGG — From an unexpected early rush of customers to the wind storm blackout, the Silver Valley's newest pizza option has successfully weathered several challenges since it opened on Jan. 11.

Located at 2 North Division St. in Kellogg, Domino's Pizza has seen a significant amount of business in just over two weeks. Store owners and franchisees Jim and Missy Hightower have been working on opening a Domino's in this location for quite a while now and are pleased with how well it has been received by the community.

"We're really surprised by how busy this store has been and how happy everyone is to have it," Jim said.

This Domino's in particular offers several standard pick-up options such as touchless car side and contactless delivery. They also offer a drive-through pick-up window, which allows customers to carry out orders without ever having to get out of their vehicles. The window has been the most popular pick-up option so far.

In just the short time they have been open, Jim has noticed that this location has different rush hours than others. It was so prevalent in the early days that it led to some delayed orders.

"It's so busy during the day," he explained. "Most Domino's stores do 80% of their business between 5 and 8 p.m. This one does 80% of its business before 6 p.m. It's weird, we just weren't prepared for that."

The option of delivery has also been a factor in the establishment's popularity. The Kellogg Domino's currently has a delivery range of 9 minutes from the store — not including more rural areas. If a home or location doesn't fall into that range, drivers can meet customers at "hot spots" to pick-up their orders. Drivers are expected to have the Domino's GPS system available to them as soon as Ziply Internet services are fully installed.

The Domino's company, Sundance Pizza Inc. has already hired approximately 30 new team members and anticipate hiring about 10 more to fully staff the new store.

"We have some of the best people in our career working for us in North Idaho," Jim said.

The store itself is equipped with three high volume XLT ovens capable of baking more than 200 pizzas an hour. The owners intentionally kept the old service station awning out front in order to have a snow cover in winter, as well as an area for outside dining in the summer.

"We want to apologize for our parking lot, which cannot be resealed and repaired until it warms up in the spring," Jim said. "We have invested over a half a million dollars in this business, but we cannot fix the parking lot until Mother Nature agrees!"

The Hightowers want to expressly thank and express their gratitude to Terry and Karla Douglas for being willing to negotiate a deal with a lease/purchase agreement.

"The restaurant could not have been built without this help from Terry and Karla," Missy said. "This was the only really viable location in the county, and the Douglases made it happen."

With a Silver Valley location being on their radar for some time now, the Hightowers are looking forward to a long and prosperous relationship with the community.