Published December 10, 2009 WEST RICHLAND — It’s always a day at the beach at Smitty’s Paradise, the most tropical convenience store in the country.<\/P> The West Richland business recently won the Best Interior Design award in a nationwide contest sponsored by Convenience Store News, a trade publication, for its island paradise look and feel.<\/P> Smitty’s Paradise, at 1400 Bombing Range Road, also has a gas station and car wash. But inside, its bamboo-covered ceiling gives the store a definite tropical quality that the magazine described as “Tommy Bahama meets Starbucks in Margaritaville.” <\/P> The store, which opened in July 2008, has a raffia-covered tiki hut inside, a Caribbean mural and a large picture of Pacific Ocean waves and surfboards above the cooler doors. The restrooms even have decorative palm trees.<\/P> Employees wear Hawaiian shirts to enhance the beach feel, and soon the store will play Hawaiian Christmas music.<\/P> “Store sales are exceeding our expectations,” said Rod Smith, who owns Smitty’s with his brothers, Doug and Rick.<\/P> They chose the theme to reflect the nearby crossroad Paradise Way, Smith said.<\/P> “We thought, ‘That’s a natural theme,’ ” he said.<\/P> The idea was to make fuel-buying a fun experience for customers, Smith said. <\/P> The brothers also own R.H. Smith Distributing Co., a more than 60-year-old firm which provides fuel and convenience products to customers between the Cascades and the Columbia River.<\/P> The brothers and their wives worked with Paragon Solutions, of Fort Worth, Texas, to come up with the store’s design. The cost of decorating the interior with a tropical theme was about 5 percent of the total project cost of $2 million, Smith said.<\/P> He said he thinks the store’s welcoming feel has helped it become the No. 2 money maker for the company. With annual sales of about $4.2 million in the last financial year ending in September, it’s only behind the company’s Yakima store, which opened in 1986 and has a restaurant, Smith said.<\/P> Smitty’s has a Quiznos within the store, and a “green” car wash adjacent to it. <\/P> Smitty’s car wash uses 80 percent less water and 30 percent less energy than a typical car wash, and the cleaning agents it uses contain no phosphates and are biodegradable, Smith said.<\/P> One of the exterior car wash walls also sports a paradise-themed mural, about 12 feet by 35 feet.<\/P> The mural is based on a drawing, selected from 150 submissions by art students at Enterprise Middle School, Smith said, adding a Columbia Basin College art teacher and her students painted the mural<\/STRONG>.<\/P> Smith said his company has planned similar store projects in Yakima and the Tri-Cities.<\/P> “We’ll continue to have theme-oriented designs,” he said.<\/P>
<\/SPAN>By Pratik Joshi, Herald staff writer<\/P>