Famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright once said the gas station would be “the future city in embryo which would naturally grow into a neighborhood distribution center, meeting-place, restaurant or whatever else is needed.” This nostalgic thought still rings true at the junction of Highway 6 and 603 at Hillcrest Food Mart.
Pete Holmstedt has worked at Hillcrest Food Mart for about fifteen years. He’s not exactly sure on the timeframe since there are no paper records after the store changed owners several times. His self-imagined title is “Corndog Sales Representative.” He also prefers to call the popular gas station the “Hillcrest Food Mart and Corndog Emporium.” But he laughs and says if he’s honest, “I don’t really like corndogs – it’s just a vehicle for mustard.”
Pete moved to Washington from New York in 1995. “Long story, but the short version is I had a lot of problems there,” he says. “I thought if I moved, things would change and that wasn’t correct. I still had problems.”
Pete says he originally took the job because it was easy. “It took some honesty on my part to figure out I was going in the wrong direction,” he recalls. “Things were getting worse and someone who came in here mentioned a few things to me and I followed him. My life has been different ever since.”
Pete has had some memorable and humorous moments in his decade and a half at Hillcrest Food Mart including a guy who broke in through a window and crab-walked to the ATM in an attempt to avoid the camera.
Another time, there was a shooting on the highway and Pete thought they were having car troubles, so he went to help them.
There’s also a barely appropriate story about a man who broke the toilet and came out of the bathroom soaking wet. Pete and his boss donned garbage bags for the clean-up. Pete took charge of odor control and stood behind them spraying air freshener.
Everyone takes trips to the gas station and all kinds of people come into the store. “People just like to talk,” says Pete. “We joke – if you want to get out of here quick, don’t come to my line.”
A stop at Hillcrest Food Mart isn’t a typical experience where the customer remains unknown. “In customer service, people like when you ask how they’re doing,” Pete says. “And when you get to know someone, you actually care about them.” Pete loves talking to people all day long and drinking coffee.
Pete visits the jail twice per month to talk to guys who may need help. “Part of it is I can’t keep what I have, unless I give it back,” he says. “It reminds me of where I could have been going – but I get to leave.”
When Pete sees people having troubles, he can relate. “The person that helped me just planted a seed and, when I was ready, I knew who I could call. I don’t think I was put in this place by accident.”
Two years ago, his parents moved to Lewis County from New York after owning a gas station there for forty-five years. Ironically, when Pete was younger he worked for his father at the family’s gas station.
Pete also worked in New York delis. When he moved to Washington, he thought about opening a New York delectation because he missed the variety of sandwiches there. He suggested making sandwiches to his boss at Hillcrest Food Mart and created a chicken strip sandwich with mozzarella on garlic bread. “It’s funny because when I first started, guys were like, ‘What the heck is that?’” Pete says. “Now we know what sells good and do a sandwich of the day.”
Whenever he thinks about finding a new job, Pete remembers the relationships he has built with people at the gas station over the years. “To see the things that happen in their lives is rewarding,” he says. “I love the people from around here. A lot of local people, this is their everyday place and they all have stories.”
He’s reminded of how long he’s worked there when people he first helped as kids come in with families of their own.
“When people leave here, I want them to smile and think the food was good and we were nice,” says Pete. “One guy, it took me three years to get him to smile. I knew it would happen. I thought, I’m going to work this guy. I memorized what he liked and how he liked it. I cracked him eventually.”
Hillcrest Food Mart
108 Highway 603
Chehalis
360-748-0697
