Ray's set for grand opening

Shoppers will walk into a brand new Ray's Food Place on the west end of Sisters on Wednesday, November 12.

The old 28,500-square-foot grocery store will close its doors at 7 p.m. on November 11 and the doors will open on the massive new 43,500-square-foot Ray's at 7 a.m.

There will be an 8 a.m. ribbon cutting to mark the occasion - one with a special sense of history. In 1980, Dan Fouts, Dave Moyer and then-Rodeo Queen Kanoe Durdan cut the ribbon on a Sentry Market at the location that eventually became Ray's.

"The same three are going to do it here, at this store," said Manager Jeff McDonald. "We'll have all kinds of food demos and tastings going on that day - actually for the first four days."

There will also be some potentially lucrative drawings.

"We're going to have a whole list of cool stuff, to be headed up by a Polaris ATV on a trailer that we're going to give away," McDonald said.

On November 22, Captain Phil from the hit Discovery Channel show "The Deadliest Catch" will be on hand to promote his "Deadliest Brew" coffee and to sign copies of a Deadliest Catch DVD.

Customers will find a much-expanded selection of foods in the larger store, along with several new amenities. There will be an in-store branch of Bank of the Cascades and a Sisters Coffee Co. Outpost.

"We're going to have a kiosk inside the Ray's," said Leigh-Anne Durham of Sisters Coffee Co. "We'll have all the regulars: lattes, mochas. We're going to work on some fruit smoothies, fresh out of the produce section."

Durham said that Ray's targeted Sisters Coffee and only Sisters Coffee for an in-store kiosk.

"They said, 'we don't want anybody else in there; are you willing to do it?'" Durham said. "We decided to go for it."

Durham noted that customers "are going to see the same faces that they see at Sisters Coffee."

Gail Show will be the Outpost manager.

Going with the local coffee roaster instead of a national chain is a reflection of the local orientation of the store. That is also reflected in the décor. The walls are adorned with quilt prints and rodeo pictures and the Sisters Country Brand will share wall space with Ray's own logo. An alcove is wallpapered with issues of The Nugget (an interesting twist on the concept of immortal prose).

"We've got quilt stuff in here; we've got rodeo stuff in here; we named the aisles after landmarks around town," McDonald said.

The store will cater to local needs, with two conference rooms available for meetings and birthday parties and the like on a free-of-charge signup basis.

McDonald said he has been asked many times about UScan technology for checkout. The new store has it.

"It's the first store in our company to have UScan," he said. We've been doing a lot of programming (and training) to make sure we get off on the right foot with it."

Author Bio

Jim Cornelius, Editor in Chief

Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.

• Email: editor@nuggetnews.com
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