For Shawn Owen, Hills & Hollows in Boulder Town, Utah, is more than a convenience store—it’s a place to show hospitality to locals and tourists alike. “I’ve spent 20 years of my career in the restaurant industry, and when you think of a gas station convenience store, you don’t think of hospitality,” he said. “But Hills & Hollows has become a unique, hospitable destination that happens to have gas and convenience items.”
The Backstory
Owen’s parents bought the store in 1989, and his first job there involved bagging ice for a quarter a bag when he was 10 years old. The location near state and national parks brought in tourists from all over, and his parents often chatted up visitors.
“I watched how they made everyone who came through the door feel special,” Owen said. That made an impression on him, and when he had the opportunity to purchase the store from his parents in 2016, he did. “It’s been a passion of mine to run this because I love the business and am glad we were able to keep it in the family,” he said.
Owen has continued the legacy his parents started, including being at the forefront of healthy eating. “They brought in natural foods long before natural food was a movement,” he said. “The local cowboys thought they were crazy, but the European tourists loved it.”
The store has grown into a one-stop shop for locals and tourists. Hills & Hollows has a mini-grocery section, a package agency, showers and laundry service, liquor, a camping section, fresh food and home supplies. “We always find a way to get what our customers want,” he said. When someone requested he carry camera film, he managed to find a source. “It’s the little things like stocking film upon request that make our store unique,” he said. “I’m a huge believer that service and hospitality go hand in hand.”
Hills & Hollows bakes pizzas on-site in an Old World-style oven and purchases organically sourced breads, pastries, cookies, brownies, burritos and sandwiches from local vendors. In addition, the store stocks locally made jewelry, creams, jams, essential oils, knives and paintings. “It’s not a profit center for us, but we do it to support the locals,” Owen said.
A local musician plays on Wednesday evenings. “We have continued that during the pandemic, and everyone has cooperated by socially distancing to listen,” he said. “Our local clientele especially enjoys our music events.”
Hills & Hollows has become a one-stop shop for locals and tourists, stocking general merchandise, alcohol and groceries, with a focus on fresh and natural foods, and providing showers and laundry services. Wednesday nights are for live music.
Meeting a Crisis Head-on
When COVID-19 began shutting down areas, Hills & Hollows invested in developing an online store. “We knew we were the only source for groceries in our area, so we needed to keep food coming into the community and keep the community safe,” Owen said.
He shut the doors of the physical store to customers and reconfigured the layout to facilitate online order fulfillment. He installed a walk-up window for foot traffic and started curbside pickup. “I feel good that we did the right thing in not allowing customers into our store for two months, and the window and curbside service allowed us to stay in business,” Owen said.
Now, the store follows the state requirements for masks. “Our state has a color-coding system, and we post on our front door what’s required for customers to enter,” he said. He still does online orders, but the demand has dropped. “Most people want to drive and go in, but we have some elderly customers who want curbside pickup to continue,” he said. “For us, online ordering is a smart community move but not a smart business move because it’s not very profitable for us.”
Hills & Hollows also served the community by opening its restrooms to the public. “I paid for ads on Google and social media to show we had bathrooms available because the town and parks had shut down,” Owen said. “We had a huge influx of people coming to the parks around our town, and our store had the only public bathrooms around.”
For Owen, the most important thing in running the store is making sure customers enjoy the hospitality Hills & Hollows offers. “We want our guests to leave feeling like there’s a way to have hospitality and service even in a location like a gas station,” he said.
Bright Ideas
To free up employees to focus on delivering excellent service to the customers of Hills & Hollows, owner Shawn Owen put systems in place to run the store efficiently, such as point of sale and inventory methods designed to save time. “We want to be super-efficient in the way we do things so our staff can put their full attention on our customers,” he said.
To that end, he’s always thinking about what extra service he can bring to Hills & Hollows to make life just a little bit easier for his customers. For example, he’ll soon be adding a U.S. Post Office kiosk. “Anything we can do to make their stop a better experience for our customers, we’ll do,” he said. “It’s all about making our store more hospitable and the best place they’ll ever shop.”