Mark Mullet, owner of Zeeks Pizza, now plans to bring a taste of Vermont to the Issaquah Highlands. The city councilman will open a Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shop next month.

The local branch of the eco-conscious company famous for punny flavors — Cherry Garcia, anyone? — and social activism will open near Caffe Ladro, inside a former home sales center about mid-September. Plans call for about 40 seats spread across 1,300 square feet.

“I think Ben & Jerry’s and Issaquah are a natural fit,” he said.

Before Mullet can start serving scoops of Chubby Hubby and Chunky Monkey, he had to attend Scoop University, the training facility for franchisees in Vermont. There, the former bank executive learned to mix milkshakes and shape waffle cones.

The biggest challenge for Mullet: cursive writing. He said another employee should handle the frosting messages atop ice cream cakes.

Edward Jones ranked highest in investor satisfaction

For the fifth year out of the past six, financial-services firm Edward Jones, including 12 financial advisors in the Issaquah area, ranks highest in investor satisfaction with full-service brokerage firms, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2010 Full Service Investor Satisfaction Study.

The study measures overall investor satisfaction with full service investment firms based on seven factors: investment advisor, portfolio performance, account information, account offerings, commissions and fees, website and problem resolution. The J.D. Power and Associates study found that Edward Jones “performed particularly well across the two highest-weighted factors: investment advisor and investment performance.”

The 2010 Full Service Investor Satisfaction Study is based on responses from 4,460 investors who primarily invest with one of the 12 firms included in the study. The study was fielded in May.

Edward Jones, which ranked No. 2 on Fortune magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” in 2010, is headquartered in St. Louis. The firm has been on the list for the past 11 years.

Goddard School teams with National Geographic

The Goddard School, with a branch in Issaquah, will play an integral role in developing a new book from the National Geographic Society.

Filled with magical science and nature adventures, the book will offer multisensory experiences for children.

The Goddard School community will help select the title and cover design, share ideas about classroom projects, test activities and contribute a collection of their own childhood memories. The book will be available this spring at retail outlets.

New mobile dog groomer debuts

Barbara Buglioli, of Issaquah, recently debuted her business, Groucho Barks Mobile Pet Grooming. She works individually with each client, offering discounts for multiple dogs and cats in the same neighborhood. Buglioli said her prices are the same or lower than many salons.

Buglioli makes the job fun for her and her clients by posting legendary Groucho Marx movie posters, postcards and other creative art on the walls around the van’s plentiful windows and high ceilings.

Buglioli also volunteers at the Seattle Humane Society, in Bellevue, helping groom dogs and cats waiting to be adopted.

Book your dog at www.grouchobarksgrooming.com.

Highmark Medical Center building opens

HighMark Investments has opened the Highmark Medical Center — a medical building spread across three floors and 46,000 square feet at Northwest Maple Street and state Route 900.

The building, across from the Issaquah Transit Center, has been certified gold under the LEED environmental rating system.

“A culmination of more than two years of careful planning and thoughtful design in protecting and enhancing the community, adjacent wetlands and staying true to preserving the environment, leads us to the end result of providing Issaquah a beautiful new state-of-the art building,” HighMark CEO Mike Kerby said in a news release.

The building houses locations for Northwest Asthma & Allergy Center, Lake Washington Vascular, Medical Arts Group of Issaquah, TLJ Aesthetics, Washington Imaging Services and Restorix/Innovative Health. About 80 percent of the building has been leased.

Texas company buys Issaquah pawnshop operator

Issaquah-based Maxit Financial — operator of the Pawn X-Change chain in Washington and other pawnshops in Arizona — has been sold to a Texas company for $70 million.

Cash America International, based in Fort Worth, and the Issaquah company announced the decision Aug. 2. The companies expect the deal to be finalized by the fourth quarter.

The chain operates 29 stores in Washington, and 10 in Arizona under the Maxit Pawn & Retail name. Cash America boasts more than 1,000 locations nationwide, including five in Washington.

Pawn X-Change started in 1993 and has since grown into one of the largest privately-owned pawnshop chains in the nation.

Pomegranate Center joins Walla Walla project

Through a collaboration with Walla Walla-based nonprofit Commitment to Community, Issaquah’s Pomegranate Center is working with residents of a neighborhood in Walla Walla to transform a misused open space in their neighborhood.

This project comes on the heels of a similar project in Walla Walla, where Pomegranate Center collaborated to build a neighborhood gathering place in one week. That project received the 2009 Washington State Evergreen Award for groundbreaking collaboration.

Mark Mullet hopes to bring a taste of Vermont to the Issaquah Highlands. The city councilman plans to open a Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shop in the neighborhood next month.

Mullet plans to open the local branch of the eco-conscious company famous for punny flavors — Cherry Garcia, anyone? — and social activism near Caffe Ladro, inside a former home sales center. He hopes to open the shop in mid-September. Plans call for about 40 seats spread across 1,300 square feet.

“I think Ben & Jerry’s and Issaquah are a natural fit,” he said.

Before Mullet could start serving scoops of Chubby Hubby and Chunky Monkey, however, he had to attend Scoop University, the training facility for franchisees in South Burlington, Vt. There, the former bank executive learned to mix milkshakes and shape waffle cones.

The biggest challenge for Mullet: cursive writing. He said another employee should handle the frosting messages atop ice cream cakes.

Mullet opened a Zeeks Pizza franchise in the highlands last June. In November, he became the first highlands resident to serve on the City Council.

Creating art on company time doesn’t get you into trouble at Issaquah-based Artitudes Design Inc. — in fact, it’s just the opposite.

Employees at Artitudes spend a lot of their time creating luxe graphics campaigns, but they also spend it making sparkly CD fish, clothespin-animal picture holders and bean mosaics in schools.

Carrie Meredith (left), executive assistant with Artitudes Design Inc., of Issaquah, looks over the progress of a student’s art project during an art docent campaign classroom visit. Contributed

Why, you may ask? In a time of severe budget constraints for local and state governments, Andrea Heuston, Artitudes Design owner and creative principal, said it’s important to shell out to save art in public schools.

“Today, a lot of teachers are so fixated on tests and scores, and they are so fixated on trying to meet benchmarks, that art gets taken out to meet those other needs,” Heuston said. “Our job is to put it back in.”

For three years, her employees have been leaving their desks to bring art projects into struggling elementary and secondary school classrooms as part of the Artitudes in Action: Art Docent Campaign.

Since 2007, the company has donated $22,500 in supplies and paid employee volunteer hours to four schools in the Northshore, Sultan, Highline and Snoqualmie school districts.

It is a personal mission, she said, adding that she was influenced to embark on her career by art teachers and classes while she was in school.

“Not everyone is a math person and the teacher may not be an art person, so some children may not get to do art in their class,” docent and executive assistant Carrie Meredith said. The program “gives everyone the opportunity to learn something different and grow.”

Docents from Artitudes come prepared with everything for an art project; supplies, tools, lesson plans and a volunteer to give teachers a much-needed break, she said.

But more than something to fill time, art docents work with teachers to make projects relevant to what children are learning in class, whether it’s science, math, literature or history.

For instance, “the sixth-graders at Woodin Elementary were learning about Egyptian gods and Egyptian history. They hadn’t studied it before, so the teacher didn’t have a project,” Meredith said. “So, to help them, we had a guide that showed them how to write their name, and then we had them create an Egyptian god and come up with a symbol for it.”

While not every employee becomes a docent, everyone participates in the program, Heuston said.

Employees contribute by bringing supplies, said Lori Hudson, business operations manager and a docent.

Since many supplies are actually recyclable items, like egg and milk cartons, there is a lot of participation. What isn’t donated, like googly-eyes, pipe cleaners, paints and sparkles, the company spends its own money on.

While using recyclables saves money, it also shows children they can create art from nearly anything, Hudson said.

The company’s Monday meetings also start by making a craft, instead of giving reports, Meredith said, so docents get to try out new art projects before bringing them into classrooms.

But there’s the added benefit of boosting employee morale, too.

“Everyone loves the craft projects,” she said. “It’s something hands-on that we create together.”

High morale and the opportunity to make a difference is the reason, Heuston said, the company has earned numerous awards for being a great place to work.

While the docent program helped more than 400 children create art projects this year, Heuston said she would like to see that number grow.

To do that, the company is creating a nonprofit organization in the next few years to allow other businesses to donate supplies, funding or allow their employees to volunteer time, too.

“We have so many of our clients that want to be involved and who think art is important,” she said. Because “without art in schools, who will be our next generation of artists?”

Chantelle Lusebrink: 392-6434, ext. 241, or clusebrink@isspress.com. Comment at www.issaquahpress.com.

On the Web

www.artitudesdesign.com

Joey Nicole Boudoir features photographer Joey Nicole, a University of Washington graduate from the Bellevue area. Nicole studied under internationally recognized photographer Bob Davis.

She attended the Boudoir Divas Conference in San Diego, Calif., where she worked with leaders in the industry to master the art of working with women in all aspects of shooting boudoir photography.

While many initially book a shoot with the intention of giving Joey’s famed Little Black Book as a gift, many clients say, “I booked this for him, but after doing the shoot I now realize this was so much more for me.”

Nicole’s boudoir photography studio offers clients a comfortable environment, as well as on-site professional makeup application by ILoveBlush.com, a unique-to-you playlist of music to help put you in the mood, nearly instant photo viewing after the shoot, free parking directly outside the studio and more.

Learn more at www.joeynicoleboudoir.com.

The magazine lauded Aegis, saying the Redmond-based company places emphasis “on seniors living with dignity, and special programs and facilities at each location ensure that assisted living, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s patients are afforded the opportunity to remain active members of each community.”

The company operates 12 senior communities in Washington, including Aegis of Issaquah, 780 N.W. Juniper St.

“We are proud to be recognized by our community, it means so much to all of us here at Aegis Living,” Dwayne Clark, company chairman and CEO, said in a news release. “It is just another example of the hard work and compassion our employees bring to our communities and the way ‘We Make Life Better’ every day for our residents and their families.”

Best Buy seeks to remodel the former La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries in the shopping center along East Lake Sammamish Parkway Southeast.

Plans call for Best Buy to occupy the former furniture store and the long-empty Pacific Fabrics space. The store should open by early 2011.

Best Buy has proposed to modify the front of the building, as well as the truck-loading dock in the back. In order to accommodate the updated delivery area, the chain has proposed added landscaping to the north, east and west sides of the building.

In February, Best Buy — headquartered in Richfield, Minn. — announced plans to open a store in Issaquah. La-Z-Boy closed last month.

Confetti Cupcakes & Confections opened at 94 Front St. N. in late June. The shop offers frosting-slathered cupcakes and drinks in a bright, airy space. Linger in the summer sunshine at the bistro table perched outside. During the early weeks after the shop opened, patrons lined up for moist cupcakes capped by a variety of homemade frostings.

The lineup includes classics — think carrot and red velvet cupcakes — and updates on standbys. Chocolate cupcakes, for instance, come bedazzled by crushed Oreos or Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.

Learn more at www.confetti-cakes.com or e-mail info@confetti-cakes.com.

The planned Best Buy at East Lake Center inched closer to reality Wednesday, as city planners started reviewing a permit application from the electronics chain.

Best Buy seeks to remodel the former La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries in the shopping center along East Lake Sammamish Parkway Southeast.

Plans call for Best Buy to occupy the former furniture store and the long-empty Pacific Fabrics space. The store should open by early 2011.

Best Buy has proposed to modify the front of the building, as well as the truck loading dock in the back. In order to accommodate the updated delivery area, the chain has proposed added landscaping to the north, east and west sides of the building.

In February, Best Buy — headquartered in Richfield, Minn. — announced plans to open a store in Issaquah. La-Z-Boy closed at the site last month.

Subway should open at 98 Front St. N. by mid-July, franchisee Karim Karmali said last week. The city issued a permit for the restaurant June 23 and, by the next afternoon, green “Coming Soon” banners hung in the windows.

Karmali also operates the Subway along Northwest Gilman Boulevard.

Upcoming additions to downtown also include dessert. The nationwide cupcake craze reached Issaquah last week.

The other addition, at the opposite end in the same building as the planned Subway — the storefront at 94 Front St. N. — opened June 28 as Confetti Cupcakes. Employees took to Twitter on June 23 to announce the opening.

Subway and Confetti Cupcakes join other businesses relocating downtown from other storefronts and from elsewhere in the city.

Bicycle Center of Issaquah moved from a downtown space into half of the former Allen’s Furniture this spring. Amante Pizza & Pasta plans to open in the renovated space next door within the next few weeks.

El Abuelo, a downtown Mexican grocery damaged in a January fire, did not reopen, and the owners did not renew the lease for the 147 Front St. N. space. Troy Salon — the adjacent business damaged in the blaze — plans to reopen in the space next door after the space has been renovated.

Warren Kagarise: 392-6434, ext. 234, or wkagarise@isspress.com. Comment at www.issaquahpress.com.

Every trip through a cavernous Costco Wholesale warehouse feels like a treasure hunt.

The company brings Dom Pérignon and Bud Light, platinum-set diamonds and scoopable cat litter, Prada handbags and Michelin tires together under the same flat roof.

Costco members line up to check out with carts full of their purchases at the flagship Issaquah warehouse. By Greg Farrar

The quest has been carefully designed for shoppers — 57.4 million Costco members worldwide. Shoppers must traverse vast retail plains and scan the jungle of exposed metal shelves for bargains in order to find loot — discounted Ugg boots, say, or smoked salmon.

Inside the Issaquah warehouse, customers hunt for deals in a retail ecosystem spread across 155,000 square feet. Costco cachet knows no class, no income. Part of the appeal, executives and industry watchers said, stems from the treasure hunt concept. Shoppers return to Costco for basics, yes, but also for the thrill of a surprise bargain.

“No matter what level of economic strata you are, you like good stuff,” company Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti said. “Now, sometimes you have to choose to buy the chicken versus the steak, but the fact is, we’ve got some great stuff.”

The philosophy has made the Issaquah-based company the third largest retailer in the United States, the eighth largest on the planet and No. 25 on the Fortune 500.

The average Costco in the United States pulls in just under $140 million in sales per year. The closest rival, Wal-Mart wholesaler Sam’s Club, rakes in about half as much per warehouse.

Costco — the empire built upon limited selection, generous sizes and a frills-free atmosphere — employs 2,700 people in Issaquah, more than any other business.

CEO Jim Sinegal, a company cofounder and a millionaire septuagenarian famous for lunching on the $1.50 hot-dog-and-soda combo at the food court, runs the retail colossus.

Under Sinegal, Costco has consistently earned plaudits from employees and members — as well as occasional ire from Wall Street — for how the company does business.

Main Street appeal

Like the sprawling warehouse looming 400 yards away, Costco corporate headquarters has no frills.

Sinegal occupies a nondescript office open to passers-by. Galanti works in a barebones space punctuated by a mini-fridge stocked with store-brand, Kirkland Signature bottled water.

The main building served as a Boeing communications center before Costco relocated there. Sinegal thought the marble foyer looked too fancy, but after he realized the cost to rip out the marble, he balked.

The thrifty Sinegal offers some of the most generous wages and health benefits in the industry.

Jody Heymann, director of the Institute for Health and Social Policy at McGill University in Montreal, examined Costco as part of a six-year study — published in May — of the wages and benefits offered to low-level employees.

“While Wall Street sometimes rewards in the short run, in the long run, the companies that are outperforming are the ones taking a social-investment strategy,” Heymann said.

Companywide, employees earn, on average, about $19.50 per hour — or, the study showed, about 42 percent higher than average wages paid by Sam’s Club, the closest competitor. Costco also pays almost 90 percent of employees’ health care costs.

“Wall Street sometimes asks, ‘OK, well, it’s great that you pay more, and yeah, your employees are great, but have you tried 18? Or 17.50?’” Galanti said. “And the answer is no.”

Costco rewards employees in other ways, too.

The company doles out prime parking spots — situated beneath the headquarters buildings — to employees based on tenure, not hierarchy. So, the accounts payable clerk parking next to Galanti, a Costco employee for 26 years, has worked for the wholesaler for almost as long.

“We’ve done a good job of walking the walk, not just because it plays well in Peoria, but because it’s the right thing to do,” he said.

Kirkland Signature, Issaquah address

Costco dwarfs all other Issaquah-based businesses in size and scope — a multibillion-dollar retailer with 568 outposts spread across 40 states and four continents.

But the headquarters campus could just as easily be in Redmond. Costco planned to relocate there from Kirkland in the early 1990s, but the proposal collapsed amid concerns about traffic congestion.

The same unease almost kept Costco out of Issaquah. The chain vowed never to open a warehouse in Issaquah after city officials and residents thwarted a 1989 attempt to build a store along Northwest Gilman Boulevard.

Bolstered by a survey of Issaquah residents showing demand for a warehouse, Costco opened a warehouse at Pickering Place in September 1994. The company completed the headquarters move to Issaquah in 1996.

Former Mayor Rowan Hinds said welcoming Costco to the city required a gamble.

“Do we leave it like it is and let the land sit vacant, or do we change the zoning to allow something else to happen?” he said.

Hinds recalled spending a day at the Salmon Days Festival with Costco cofounder Jeffrey Brotman before the company established a beachhead in Issaquah. Brotman assuaged concerns about the mega-development.

Mayor Ava Frisinger, then a councilwoman, and other officials toured a local Costco to prepare. The super-sized products awed the future mayor, a onetime medieval literature student, as she “walked around with the kind of gaze I usually give to the tracery in Gothic cathedrals,” she recalled.

The project still caused public outcry — for a time, anyway. Frisinger recalls bumping into former Costco opponents shopping at the Issaquah warehouse.

Bare necessities, in bulk

Trips to Costco warehouses started to inch upward in early 2008 — about the same time gasoline prices climbed into the stratosphere and the national economy nosedived.

“Every night on the news, somewhere — whether it was Missoula, Mont., or Los Angeles — where’s the cheapest place to buy gas? Costco,” Galanti said. “We got new sign-ups because of it, and then that segued into the bad market. Turns out that the bad economy also helped us some.”

Customers curbed spending on high-end items — furniture and jewelry, for instance — but Costco continued to do a brisk business in groceries and other essentials, like toilet paper and laundry detergent.

Spending on extras has boosted the chain this year. Galanti said the recession-induced drop-off in travel created a run on patio furniture.

Dan Geiman, a Costco analyst at Seattle brokerage firm McAdams Wright Ragen, said competitive prices for staple items buoyed the company during the recession.

“Costco has held their own,” he said. “There’s no question about that.”

The chain earned high marks from more than 30,000 shoppers in a Consumer Reports study released in early June. Survey respondents declared Costco to be the best among the 11 most-popular chain stores in the nation.

Because bargains and bulk carry international appeal, Costco has successfully exported the brand. The company operates warehouses in seven nations outside the United States.

Costco opened a store in Australia last August, and the company plans to expand into a still-undisclosed nation in Western Europe next.

Despite dominance by global brands, national tastes influence the products offered at international warehouses.

Costcos in Taiwan sell the rotisserie chickens with the heads still attached.

Japanese customers buy jumbo containers of Downy fabric softener, because customers claim the soapy scent smells like America.

The chain yielded to local custom in Korea, and added tanks populated by live fish to warehouses. The company planned to offer “the freshest dead fish,” Galanti said, but after seafood failed to sell, Costco ripped out the coolers and added tanks.

Super-sized wining and dining

Costco relies on customers to build buzz about the bargain-hunt atmosphere. The company does not advertise.

No inescapable TV commercials. No radio jingles. No sales circulars in the Sunday paper.

But Costco products appear in unlikely places, although the wholesaler does not pay for product placement in films and TV shows. The infamous pastry in “American Pie” and the food arrayed on banquet tables at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the “Harry Potter” film franchise — all Costco products.

The retail Goliath has amassed impressive superlatives in the 26 years since the first warehouse opened in South Seattle.

Costco sells more fine wine than any other business on the planet — racking up $597 million in sales during the 2009 fiscal year.

Costco represents more than 40 percent of the Tuscan olive oil sold in the United States. The company has relationships with more than 700 growers in Tuscany to meet consumer demand.

Costco imports more than 25 percent of lamb exported from global sheep capital New Zealand to the United States.

The company sells more U.S.D.A. Choice beef than anywhere else and roasts almost 1 million birds per week for grab-and-go rotisserie chickens.

The bestselling item at Costco might also carry the least cachet: toilet paper.

Michael Clayman, editor of Warehouse Club Focus, a trade publication, said the aggressive approach makes good business sense for Costco.

“They basically view every item out there as a potential item,” he said.

Costco touts high quality — think bigger stitches in Kirkland Signature underwear, larger cashews and plumper shrimp — as a reason why customers keep coming back.

“Everybody likes a deal,” Galanti said. “Everybody likes big. And we do both.”