Work begins on Freddy's Frozen Custard site

The site on Woodruff Avenue where Freddy's Frozen Custard is to be built.

For the sake of everyone who has asked about dirt being moved on Woodruff Avenue near WinCo Foods, that site is where Freddy's Frozen Custard and Steakburgers is going.

Freddy's announced last December that it was planning a store in Idaho Falls and filed site plans with the city building office in April.

The company was founded in 2002 by two brothers, Bill and Randy Simon, whose father, Freddy Simon, was the inspiration for the restaurant (and obviously its namesake). The first franchise launched in Hutchinson, Kansas, in 2004 and by October 2013 the company had opened its 100th location, in Bowling Green, Ky.

According to the Web site, Freddy's plans to open 400 more stores over the next 10 to 15 years.

Earlier this year, Freddy's rated No. 9 in a Consumer Reports ranking of hamburgers.

Who's afraid of Shaddow Domain?

Julie Oliver, behind the counter at Shaddow Domain

Julie Oliver recognizes some people are never going to visit her store, Shaddow Domain, 175 S. Eastern Avenue.

Anyone who is freaked out by pentagrams, Wiccan accoutrements and books about the occult (and there are a few) are by and large not her target audience.

Nevertheless, she's not a devil worshiper, just a small retailer and good neighbor who's been in business for 12 year. She would like to encourage anyone with an open mind to stop by for a visit.

"We're not scary," she said. "The hardest thing is to get people in the front door. It's just a fun place."

With Halloween approaching, you might expect a surge in business, but it's not that big a bump. "It's a big time for people to come in who don't normally come in," she said.

Before starting the store, Oliver worked for 20 years at Chesbro Music, on the second floor, where all the sheet music is kept. Working at Shaddow Domain has given her more face time with the public, which she likes.

Nobody has ever given her flak, and obviously there's a market for the shirts, incense, candles, dolls and novelties that Shaddow Domain sells. The store's Facebook page has 1,986 likes.

"People are looking for so much different stuff," Oliver said. She has no aspirations to grow the business to get any bigger than it is.

"If it got huge, it would lose something special," she said.

Nearest Hobby Lobby store remains in Logan, Utah

We're still kind of buzzing from the response the Hobby Lobby story got last week (6,114 page views in two days) and are waiting like everyone else with bated breath for the official announcement. In the meantime, the nearest Hobby Lobby store remains in Logan, Utah. If it's a deal to you, it might be a nice weekend for a drive. Tell them BizMojo Idaho sent you.

Guns and Gear eyes early November opening

Work has been going on at Guns and Gear, on Crane Drive, since April.

With a new business, Guns and Gear, due to open in two months, Shane Murphy thinks he knows his niche fairly well.

Sportsman's Warehouse and the soon-to-be open Cabela's can have the hunters. Guns and Gear is aimed at "couch commandos," the firearms aficionados who can't get enough of gadgets.

"A $3,500 heat sensor comes out and they've got to have it," Murphy said. "It's very interesting to see the level of interest in that high tactical stuff."

Located on Crane Drive, south of Pancheri, Murphy said they are eyeing a soft opening the first week of November and a grand opening Nov. 14. The project got underway in April, and has been smooth sailing since then, he said.

When finished, there will be roughly 15,000 square feet, about one-third of it devoted to retail. On the range, there will be 15 lanes, 8 of them high tactical.

Murphy said they anticipate hiring around 14 people, including an in-house gunsmith who will be licensed to do warranty repairs on major brands. "We want to be able to fix it or modify it on the spot, not send it off for a week or ten days," he said.

For information, call 521-4564. To check them out on Facebook, click here.

Olive Garden debates wisdom of unlimited breadsticks

In three years of blogging eastern Idaho business I have never seen a reaction like the one to Wednesday's post about Hobby Lobby. In two days, BizMojo Idaho got more visitors and pageviews than the entire month of August. It was all due to the way the story got passed around on Facebook.

It's only natural to want to prolong the excitement, so here's a story about Olive Garden, another brand that seems to provoke a passion in these parts. I'm not expecting a Yellowstone Caldera eruption of hits, but I can dream, can't I?

http://www.salon.com/2014/09/12/olive_garden_investors_are_not_pleased_with_the_chains_breadstick_situation/

Personality-based interviewing works for both sides

Have you ever watched ESPN's features on athletes? If you haven’t, you are missing out. If you have, you may have a good idea of what a job interview with me would be like. Of course that is without the television cameras, film crews, and an inspirational story or background that I will be asking questions about.

ESPN’s method for encouraging and gathering information from their subjects hands down should be a model for how an employer should do an interview. This isn’t a concept that is really hard to grasp, so I am going to encourage a little bit of thought on this one.

Job seekers, I want you to imagine a job interview in which you can expect to be interviewed as an individual -- meaning getting to know you as a person -- about your professional experience.

Employers, I want you to think about how you can do that by looking beyond the typical “What are your strengths and weaknesses?” questions.

Before we completely demolish the concept of nice, structured, streamlined interview questions that solely focus on nitpicking a resume, sprinkled with a behavioral question or two, it’s important to remember that interview questions should be a custom fit for each company, and really each job.

However, doesn’t a job go beyond why a person is interested and how a candidate responded to a similar job-related situation previously? Of course it does! And that is why the concept of personality-based interview questions and approaches are becoming crucial to the interview process.

Personality-based questions are designed to find out more about the candidate on a personal level. Candidates are posed with a question that in theory should allow the interviewer to introspectively assess personal attributes, characteristics and goals, to name a few. This is important for a number of reasons (not including finding new work buddies) but foundationally allows an employer to determine if the candidate is the right personality fit. In turn, personality fit is crucial to a candidate being successful in his or her job and being able to assimilate into company culture.

Additionally, these questions can at times be a conversation “ice-breaker” – which leads to the candidate feeling more comfortable in responding to future questions by the interviewer. In turn, this allows in the interview to become more or less of a dialogue between interviewer and interviewee, allowing the interviewee to feel more at ease with the process (and to be more open with responses opposed to carefully “scripting” responses geared towards the perceived “right” answer.)

The great news is that these questions aren’t hard to create. One personality based question I ask in interviews is, “If you could have any job in the world, without any boundaries, what would it be?” I have heard everything from health inspector to sitting on the beach with a margarita – after winning the lottery of course. Both responses were exactly what I was looking for and gave me insight into each candidate.

Overall, employers need to get creative in finding the right people for the job, not a person. Personality-based interviews allow companies to go beyond the resume to get a well-rounded view of a candidate.
Monica Bitrick is the CEO of Bitrick Consulting Group, a human resources company in Idaho Falls.

Hotel on the Falls, formerly The Westbank, hangs in limbo

A vintage early '60s postcard from the Westbank Motel, Coffee Shop and Lounge.

If the phrase "Eat By the Tumbling Waters" means anything to you, you may be inclined to call the Hotel on the Falls by its original name, The Westbank.

In the '60s and '70s, that's what billboards around the Snake River Valley advertised, but since late August anyone wishing to dine or have a drink by the falls has had go somewhere else. With tourist season at an end, the fate of the River Parkway property hangs in limbo. The eight-story hexagonal tower is in foreclosure, while the restaurant, convention center and surrounding motel complex are locked up and on the market.

Dane Watkins, who owns the convention center and motel, has indicated he plans to improve the property as he looks for someone to buy it and get it back in operation. The restaurant, lounge and convention center were shut down Aug. 23, putting roughly 35 people out of work and leaving groups like the Idaho Falls Downtown Rotary, which met there every Wednesday, in the lurch.

Newer hotels such as the Hilton Garden Inn and the Marriott Residence Inn offer more up-to-date accommodations, and the Home2 by Hilton, due to open next year at Snake River Landing, is likely to raise the bar a notch higher.

The tower, which opened in 1978.

The tangle dates back to 2006, but things came to a head in June when the property's owner, Idaho Hotel Holdings, filed a default judgment against the management company, Om Shiv Ganesh LLC, for more than $3.4 million.

Doing business as Red Lion Hotel on the Falls, Om Shiv Ganesh's managing partner, Bhupendra Patel, took out a $4.37 million mortgage in 2006. In summer 2008, terms were amended to reduce the unpaid balance to $2.505 million, with monthly payments of $19,427.98 and a balloon payment of $1.69 million at maturity. Then, in April 2011, the company got a loan extension allowing it to make interest-only payments from May through October.

But with the economy sputtering, the troubles didn't end. The default judgment claims Om Shiv Ganesh stopped making payments after December 2012 and failed to pay property taxes from 2009 to 2013.

Brady Kraupp, who now runs the hotel for Westerra Realty & Management, the Salt Lake City company managing the receivership, said he's optimistic about the tower's future. "It's in pretty good shape, really," he said. "It's a concrete building. We're hoping to have a new owner after the first of the year, perhaps have some chain come in and buy it. I could be partial, but we still have the best view and the biggest rooms."

The Westbank dates back to 1928, the year Ferris Clark, son of Mayor Barzilla W. Clark and the grandson of Joseph A. Clark, Idaho Falls' first mayor, built two log buildings by the Snake River to accommodate an ever-growing number of motorists on their way to Yellowstone National Park. Over 52 years, Clark expanded the Westbank, first with a red brick motel, then a restaurant and lounge, then a two-story red brick motel. The tower opened in 1978, and Clark reportedly had plans for a second one where the convention center and motel are, but declining health sent him into retirement in 1980. He died in 1987 at age 79.

Since the '80s, the hotel has gone by different names, including Red Lion and finally the Hotel on the Falls. Until 2012, the property was owned by Jim and Sharon Bennett and Robert and Sharon Paulus, the children of Olga Gustafson Rigby. In 2012, the hotel was deeded to trusts set up by the families while Watkins bought the convention center and the land on which it sits.