MAPLE CREEK, Sask. – Everything in sight is sharp and polished.
Knives wink in the light as one walks by, pots sparkle and appliances gleam at the Country Lane Kitchens retail store in the southwestern Saskatchewan town of Maple Creek.
The family-owned store managed by Marcie Drever focuses on the customer. When Drever talks service, she doesn’t mean just the quality of the items or the cooking demonstrations she does for new or would-be owners of grain mills, juicers and processors. It is also about the shopping experience, with seasonally themed displays, special orders and her anticipation of what people want to buy, such as this year’s addition of wedding supplies and a bridal registry.
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The nine-year-old store used to be located in a tiny dim room north of the tracks. Now it has five times the space in a 30-year-old building on the town’s main street. There’s so much room that Drever is trying to think up new ways to use it for customer test activities or to show off a new sideline of goods.
“You can’t compete with the low end,” she said.
“With the store we try to carry high-end quality. It lasts. And we aim for complete customer satisfaction.”
Drever said the few items that are returned each year come back because they are the wrong colour or size, not because they malfunctioned.
But buying such quality is expensive. The store stocks such names as Bosch mills, Rada cutlery and Waterless cookware. Not just any old tea kettle, mixing bowl or spatula is offered here.
“It’s stuff no one else sells here,” she said.
“I have a lot of Medicine Hat customers who say there’s no true kitchen shop in their town.”
Drever’s store reaches out to people in a 90 minute drive radius. She said the family isn’t planning to expand, finding the one store is enough to keep Drever occupied. And besides, “I guess I’m kind of a homebody.”
Most of her customers are women, except around Christmas when men come in looking for presents for their wives. Gift certificates are the most common choice.
Drever said a lot of older women come to see what’s new, even though their cupboards are full of cooking and baking utensils.
Drever took no formal training in retail sales or kitchenware. She said some Bosch dealers helped her out at the beginning, but most of what she learned came on the job, not including the baking and cooking she did growing up.
The care she takes in planning and setting up displays is a reflection of her personality. The store is tidy, customers are greeted promptly and a former employee who was once her teacher is still respectfully called “Mrs.”
“I’ve learned a lot,” she said. “I’ve learned how to deal with people – stay peaceful and not get worked up. But I don’t see many angry customers. In a small community, people know each other so well, they don’t get mad at me.”
She rarely goes to trade shows, but has done one-day demonstrations in Cabri, Consul and Leader, Sask. She brings organic grain and spices from the store, mills them in her appliances, makes up the dough in another machine, bakes the bread in a tabletop oven and lets the customers sample it.
Another favourite recipe is krumkake, a Norwegian cookie that needs to be made with a special tool.
In a fast food world, Drever said there are still many women in her ranching and farming community who stay at home and cook from scratch. An increasing health awareness is also working in her favour.
While Drever advertises in health food publications as well as local newspapers, word of mouth is best. Unlike most new businesses, she does not have a website, preferring to do business on the phone.
The store has a free mail order catalogue that offers high-end appliances as well as measuring spoons and the highly prized gem jar lids.
