A natural alternative

MOSES LAKE — Settlers Natural Market may be the Basin’s best-kept secret.

“I've lived in Moses Lake my entire life,” said Store Manager Alicia West. “But I didn't even know that we had this great of a store here. And one time my friend brought me and I was so surprised. I was like, ‘Oh, is this new? I hadn't seen it before.’”

Settler’s Country Market opened almost 20 years ago at 741 Basin St. NW in Ephrata as a place to get hold of things the big box stores were less likely to carry: natural foods, local organic produce, that sort of thing. It did so well that owner Dock Womack opened a second location in Moses Lake in 2010, according to state license records. That location was a small storefront at Vista Village, next to Chico’s Pizza. Today it occupies a bigger space under the name Settler’s Natural Market at 118 W. Third, smack in the middle of downtown.

Settler’s built its inventory by asking customers what they’d like to see in a health food store and then going out and finding it, West said.

“(Womack) didn't plan on opening a store or anything; he planned on just buying (the building) and leasing it as a monthly income,” she said. “And when he was in there, showing it to potential buyers, he had a friend who … offered him some fresh vegetables and said, ‘Hey, see if you can push these while you're showing your building to people.’ And when people came in, they weren't quite sure, they thought maybe it was like the start of a natural food store. So they said, ‘Oh, hey, you have fresh vegetables? Can you get this and this and this?” And so he said, ‘I'll take your name and number, I'll write it down.’ And he decided to start a health food store based on that, because it seemed like there was such a high demand for those things.”

That request sheet is still in use, West said.

Some of the things Settler’s offers are very hard to find elsewhere. One big seller is raw milk, which is illegal to sell in many states. In Washington it’s legal but carefully regulated, West said. Locally-raised eggs are another popular item.

Besides the dairy products, there’s organic produce from local farms, a big variety of grains in bulk and all sorts of flour for people with gluten or other intolerances.

And then there’s meat. Sellers offers organic chicken, Alaskan salmon, grass-fed beef and even turkeys during the holiday season, West said. The antibiotic-free meats are spendier than their mass-produced counterparts, but the cost of producing them is higher too, West explained.

“It takes more work,” she said. “The organic certification alone for meat is hard for the farmer; there's a lot they have to go through and it costs them a certain amount of money. So we do definitely see that cost, and then our customers see that cost. But we try everything we can to keep our costs low. Any time we get deals or sales on things, we extend that to the customers.”

Settler’s isn’t just about groceries. There’s a whole room devoted to tea, and a line of personal care products: shampoos, soaps, body lotions and such geared toward people with sensitivities or allergies. There are also baby items like wipes and lotions, as well as organic baby food and formula.

The newest addition is a smoothie bar, where all manner of ingredients can be mixed together into a cold beverage. All the smoothies carry the names of songs – “Blue Moon,” “One Night in Bangkok” and “Shake the Sugar Tree” all carry flavors to match – and each cup goes out with a cute sticker on it. The stickers have been a popular addition, West said.

The next step, Supplement Buyer Callie Preston said, is to offer sandwiches and salads at the same location, all from organic ingredients, of course. The store is hoping to have that available by the end of the summer.

Settler’s has another advantage over its larger neighbors, both Preston and West said, and that’s the personal touch, both for employees and customers.

“Some people have worked here for a long time,” said Preston. “It’s a great place to work.”

“It's not like at stores that have a bunch of employees, and everyone is just kind of there, kind of faceless,” West said. “We don't want that here. We want everyone to know, like our customers, we want them to know that they're special, and we care about them.”

Joel Martin can be reached via email at jmartin@columbiabasinherald.com.