New owners freshen up Whitefish Westside Market

Nestled on the west side of Whitefish is a gas station and market that has undergone big changes during the last year.

After Frank Barnes, the market’s previous owner retired, the baton was passed, leading to the addition of over 400 new products, outdoor seating, and two full-time cooks to the business now known as the Whitefish Westside Market.

Barnes was looking towards retiring around the time that his daughter married Bill and Sharon Kahle’s oldest son. With the Kahles background in real estate and a deep-seated place within the Whitefish community, the couple decided that buying the Second Street store would be a great opportunity.

“We have four sons and have raised them here in Whitefish,” said Bill. “We’ve been part of the Bulldog sports community and have been really involved in ski racing and golf. I've been on the board for the Gary Norby Junior Golf Foundation for 18 years.”

Bill then recruited his close friend, Joe Hess whose background is in finance and commercial real estate, to be his business partner. Having watched Hess rebuild an old cabin in the North Fork, Bill knew his friend had a solid work ethic.

“When I mentioned it to Joe, I think it took eight or nine seconds, and he was in,” said Bill. “We just decided, ‘Let's do it’ and to jump in with both feet.”

Bill and Hess have continued Barnes' plans of expanding the building and implementing a walk-in cooler while bringing their own ideas such as adding barn wood to the walls and clearing the front windows to allow for more natural light.

“We are really lucky that Frank is still a customer of the store virtually every day and a huge asset. It's nice to be able to call the guy who owned it for the last 26 years in case there's something going on,” Bill said.

While Bill and Hess both have backgrounds in real estate, the market allows them to explore the retail space for the first time.

“It’s been a lot of fun looking for all the products,” said Hess. “We asked ourselves, ‘What could we eat here? What would our friends want to see? What do we think people would want a little more of?’ A lot of this was pretty well received. The goal is to provide more products at a really fair price point. We're not looking to gouge people and charge huge prices. We're really trying to provide a service and grow the business overall.”

The team said they are trying to coin the slogan, “Why not Westside?” as the market offers a variety of grocery essentials, and during the summer, the market hosts an outdoor barbecue on Fridays to provide burgers and brats to hungry customers.

From three ingredient almond milk to farm fresh eggs to freshly made grab and go sandwiches and breakfast burritos, the team hopes to enhance the gas station experience by providing an array of health conscious items.

“Before we added all these new products bananas were probably the healthiest thing you could get,” Hess said with a laugh. “We had the idea for breakfast burritos and tacos and fresh sandwiches and our new cook was able to implement it. We thought that maybe we’d sell five burritos in a day and we're up to 30 burritos a day, or maybe even more than that.”

As the gas station is one of the only places to stop for food at 5:30 in the morning, visitors can pick up a quick breakfast before heading into Glacier National Park or embarking on other outdoor adventures.

“[The breakfast burritos] are really good,” Sharon added. “They're fresh and gigantic and they have eggs, bacon, cheese, and hash browns and just have all those little touches in there.”

In addition to the market, the gas station boasts low ethanol gas, according to Bill who said that market’s high octane premium gasoline has been rated the cleanest in the valley.

“A guy who runs a small engine shop in town told us ‘Whenever I work on somebody's engine, I recommend that they buy their gas at your gas station because it is the cleanest gas in town.’ Nothing is absolutely 100% ethanol free, but from a percentage standpoint, we're pretty much the lowest around,” said Bill.

The team hopes to continue offering fresh and local products in addition to their standard products.

“We really want to continue servicing the customer that's been coming in here for 5, 10, or 25 years,” explained Hess. “We didn't want anyone to feel alienated and we didn’t want people to walk in and think this is some overpriced grocery store. We haven’t removed hardly anything from the store. It's been all about enhancement.”

Reporter Summer Zalesky may be reached at szalesky@dailyinterlake.com.