Spokane-based Yokes Washington Foods Inc. plans to build two 55,000-square-foot supermarkets in the Tri-Cities.


The stores, which will be Yokes Fresh Markets outlets, will be built in Pasco, at the corner of Burden Road and State Route 68, and in Kennewick, at the corner of W. 27th and South Olympia Street, by the end of next summer, says Denny York, senior vice president of the company. Both locations are in residential areas, a strategic move Yokes made to mimic success Albertsons Inc. and other grocery chains have had here, he says.


As people filter home, there we are, York says. Theres nothing else zoned commercial around us for three miles.


Both stores will have coffee shops, a sit-down eating area, bulk-candy sections, pizza shops, and pharmacies, he says. Theyll also both include branches of Spokane-based Global Credit Union that will be inside the store and have drive-up windows.


The planned Tri-Cities stores will be Yokes first ventures into the Central Washington market. The company operates eight stores in Washington and two in Idaho. The grocery market in Central Washington is dominated by discount chains.


A lot of them are doing the low-price thing, but nobodys doing the coffeehouse, nobody does the seafood we do, or the sit-down eating, he asserts. Yokes also plans to capitalize on its proximity to many of Washingtons vineyards by offering a large selection of wines.


The Spokane company was scheduled to break ground on the Pasco store this week and plans to complete construction by the end of May, York says. Bernardo-Wills Architects PC and Vandervert Construction Inc., both of Spokane, are the architect and general contractor, respectively, for that project. Construction of the Kennewick store is scheduled to start in March and to be completed in August. Neither an architect nor a contractor has been chosen for that store, York says.


Each market will employ about 150.


York declines to disclose the anticipated cost of the two projects.