The general store
Pantry staples, cold drinks and a proper bulk section — rice, beans, rolled oats, nuts and trail mix, bagged and labelled in-house. Plus local sourdough and raw Guernsey milk from up the road.
What's on the shelves
Elmira, Idaho · Since 1949
Groceries, shakes
and a proper burger.
A small family store on Highway 95, halfway between Sandpoint and Bonners Ferry. Pull in for a gallon of milk, a triple scoop, or the best cheeseburger for twenty miles.
Open Mon–Sat 9am–6pm, Sun 11am–6pm
The store
Mon–Sat 9am–6pm
Sun 11am–6pm
The burger cafe
Fri–Mon 11am–4pm
The grill runs a four-day weekend. Burgers, hot sandwiches and fries.Breakfast
Sat & Sun 9am–11am
Weekend mornings only. Call ahead if you're driving a long way for it.One stop, three reasons
It's a store, a creamery and a cafe
Elmira is a wide spot on the highway with no supermarket and no drive-thru. So the store does all of it — the weekly shop, the after-swim cone, and Sunday lunch at the counter.
Ice cream & shakes
Hand-dipped cones, sundaes, floats and old-fashioned milkshakes spun with real ice cream and whole milk. The huckleberry is the one people drive for.
See the shake list
The burger cafe
Friday through Monday the grill fires up: six burgers, six hot sandwiches, a kids' menu and fries with garlic and parmesan if you ask nicely.
See the cafe menu
The house specialty
Huckleberry, spun in a tin
Real ice cream, whole milk, and enough North Idaho huckleberry to turn the whole thing purple. It comes to the counter in the glass and in the tin, because there's always more than fits.
If huckleberry isn't your thing there are seven more flavours on the board, plus four smoothies, root beer and orange floats, and sundaes built with three toppings and a cherry.
- Huckleberry $7.50
- Classic shakes $6.50
- Kid size from $4.50
- Floats $5.50
Friday to Monday
The grill runs a long weekend
Every burger comes with fries. Start at Elmira's Burger for $9 and build it up, or go straight for the bacon-wrapped BBQ meatloaf burger — homemade meatloaf, wrapped in bacon, provolone melted over the top.
There's a full hot sandwich board too: tuna melt, BLT, club, hot beef, and a ribeye philly with tri-colour peppers on a grilled hoagie.
Grill open Fri–Mon, 11am–4pm
From just up the road
The things you can't get at a gas station
Half the point of a country store is carrying what the big shops won't bother with.
Sourdough
Round loaves with a blistered crust, bagged and tagged by hand. Plain, or garlic and rosemary. They go fast — come early.
Raw Guernsey milk
From R-Ranch Proteins in Bonners Ferry, in gallons and half gallons. Stocked fresh — give the store a ring if you want one held back.
Nuts & trail mix
Salted peanuts, macadamia mix, and a fruit-and-nut blend with mango, apricot and chocolate-covered raisins. Packed in-house by the tub.
Four generations
The same family, the same corner, since 1949
Hank and Lillian Cook bought the building in 1949 and ran it as Cooks Texaco Service, with general merchandise in the back. That's the year painted on the sign out front, and those are their initials on the locomotive.
The store has changed hands, added a post office, a barber shop and propane, closed for six years, and come back. It reopened in the summer of 2025 under Richard and Maria Cook, with eleven grandchildren helping out and Stacy Ogden running the grill.
Find us
On Highway 95, watch for the train sign
About fifteen minutes north of Sandpoint and twenty south of Bonners Ferry. There's room to park a truck and trailer.
- Address
-
490870 Highway 95
Sandpoint, ID 83864
Open in Maps → - Phone
- (208) 263-3071
- Follow
- The Elmira Store on Facebook →
Daily specials and closures get posted here first.
| Day | Store | Grill |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | 9am–6pm | 11am–4pm |
| Tuesday | 9am–6pm | — |
| Wednesday | 9am–6pm | — |
| Thursday | 9am–6pm | — |
| Friday | 9am–6pm | 11am–4pm |
| Saturday | 9am–6pm | 11am–4pm |
| Sunday | 11am–6pm | 11am–4pm |
Breakfast is served Saturday and Sunday, 9am–11am. Holiday hours can shift — the Facebook page is the fastest way to check.