Gadgets," Eric Frickle answers enthusiastically, when asked what The Kitchen Engine, in the Flour Mill retail development, sells more of than anything else. "We sell more gadgets and tools than you can imagine."

Frickle, 27, is president and general manager of the three-year-old specialty retail store, at 621 W. Mallon, where gadgets seem abundant indeed.

Say a customer needs a gadget to get that pesky silk off fresh corn on the cob. Kitchen Engine has one, called a corn de-silking brush.

Well, OK, say a customer loves fresh garden and heirloom tomatoes. There's a gadget called a "tomato saver," a tomato-shaped plastic container that keeps a tomato fresh after it's been sliced open.

Need to cut up a lot of onions? A pair of specialty goggles there can stop you from crying about it. Are flies infiltrating the cooking area, or are bees making it hard to barbeque in peace? A tennis-racket like electric fly swatter could be a game changer in the right hands.

"I like the fact that we are not like most stores," Frickle says.

While the store sells a lot of gadgets, it seeks to operate with a bit of the utilitarianism doctrine in mind—mainly that useful items are good, others are not, he says.

And it seeks to maintain the right balance of high-end products and those that offer "the best possible compromise between quality and price."

The Kitchen Engine, which opened in 2006, is owned by Frickle, his wife, Nicole Frickle, and his parents, Dan and Vicky Frickle, through a company called ENJ Corp. The store leases about 3,500 square feet of space at the Flour Mill for both its retail area and storage, and employs seven to eight people, Eric Frickle says.

It has hardwood floors, brick walls, and a demonstration kitchen area for the several cooking classes taught there each month.

"I really like the old-fashioned brick walls, the proximity to the park (Riverfront Park) and all the other awesome shops that complement ours," Frickle says. Some of the businesses there include Clinkerdagger Restaurant; Wonders of the World, a gift shop; Chocolate Apothecary, which sells chocolate gifts; and Old Joe Clark's Portrait Parlor.

"Spokane is a great town. It is fairly large, (but) with a small-town feel," Frickle says.

The store sells a lot of what you'd expect in a kitchen store, including a variety of small appliances such as electronic knife sharpeners, grain mills, blenders, and coffee makers. It has bakeware, cookware, and cutlery. And it sells a variety of plates, bowls, glasses, and cups, along with cookbooks, aprons, chopping boards, towels, and other items. It also has a wide variety of coffees, teas, and spices.

About half of Kitchen Engine's customers are women, age 45 to 65 years old, says Frickle. The other half is a mixture of men of all ages and younger women, he says.

Frickle and his father developed the idea to open a kitchen store and his father came up with the name, he says. "The 'Engine' signifies that we are the power source behind kitchens and creative cooking," Frickle says.

A few years before Kitchen Engine opened, Copper Colander Inc., a kitchen-supply store in the Flour Mill, closed.

Dan Frickle, an accountant, provided accounting services to Copper Colander, giving him insight into how the business was doing. After Copper Colander closed, Eric Frickle says, Dan Frickle "saw an opportunity for a kitchen store."

The closing of that store created a void, Frickle says. Plus, he says, "We always wanted to go into business together as a family, and this was just a good opportunity."

With Kitchen Engine entering its fourth Christmas-shopping season, he says he's starting to understand being a business owner better.

"What haven't I learned?" Frickle asks. "It's a lot more of a commitment than I ever thought it would be. I continue to learn more about people every day."

He says every job he'd had prior to running Kitchen Engine pushed him toward owning his own business.

The store has had some success. Sales rose 30 percent last year, and, despite the recession, 2009 is looking good, he says, adding that last month was the best September Kitchen Engine has had yet.

One of the challenges Kitchen Engine overcame was defining itself, focusing on functional kitchen products specifically, avoiding dcor and products for other parts of the home, he says. To do so, the store enlisted the help of its customers.

"We formed our business to what customers are asking for," he says. "We've carved out a niche, and made it something we're comfortable with."

Though the store seems to have a lot in common with national retailers such as Williams-Sonoma Inc., which has an outlet downtown, Frickle says Kitchen Engine's main competitor is the Internet. "People have this misconception that everything is cheaper online," he says.

Frickle says Kitchen Engine matches prices found online, if the Internet competitor is a legitimate source for the product.

He says Kitchen Engine is in the final stages of revamping its own Web site, where it soon will begin selling 50 of its top-selling items. The improved Web site also will be the location where people will be able to sign up for cooking classes held at the store. Currently, it doesn't sell products from its Web site, www.thekitchenengine.com.

There might be another Kitchen Engine location in the future, he says, but that will depend on the financial health of the business. He says the owners want to make sure all debt is paid off first.

He says they are eyeing downtown Coeur d'Alene as the next place for a store, or possibly Hayden, Idaho.

"But we want to make sure we've mastered the current operation here, before looking at opening another location," he says.