Since the Conger Municipal Liquor Store began serving food, it’s gone from a small town bar to a place for families in the area to stop.

“With the food, it did change the atmosphere,” Marie Helland said. “Because people come in to eat, where if it was just a bar, not everybody stopped. If you didn’t drink, you didn’t come in. Now that there’s food, they will come in and have a pop, even.”

Helland, who’s been the store’s manager for more than three years, said she pushed for the store to start serving food when she took the job.

The store already has a bar and off-sale liquor, and Helland said she knew from her experience working at Club 90 that serving food would be a key addition to the business.

“All the bars are finding that they’re not making it without food anymore,” Helland said. “They’ve got to have something more than drinks nowadays for these little towns…It’s not a big restaurant, but at least they can get a burger and fries or something to eat when they come in.”

While serving food has changed the customer base, Helland said the recent smoking ban is one reason the addition of the restaurant has been successful.

“Before it was just a bar and a lot of smokers in it,” Helland said.

“Now that they can’t come in, it’s a whole new group of people that’s started to come in, because people who didn’t want to be around the smoke wouldn’t come in, and families, of course with kids, wouldn’t come in.”

On Monday night — burger nights — Helland said half the store is filled with families.

Heland described the food as bar and grill food, with things such as hamburgers, chicken sandwiches and mozzarella sticks, but Helland said hotdish and other items are served during dinner specials.

The kitchen was built on the side of the bar, where there used to be a hallway and is positioned so workers can still see customers. There are no other restaurants in Conger, and Helland said families can eat until 10 p.m.

Mondays are $1.50 burger nights, and Thursdays are taco night, and Helland said she may add another special on another day. When the kitchen closes at 10 p.m., Helland said the store resembles a small town bar for the last three hours.

For some time, the no smoking ban affected the store’s business after the restaurant closed, because many smokers no longer came in, said Helland. Many of those customers started coming back after a few months.

“Even the people who smoke have said it’s so nice to come into the bar with no smoking anymore, which I never thought would ever happen,” Hellend said.

Without the food, Helland said the store wouldn’t be where it’s at today, but she said she’s not surprised it’s been successful.

Since the store started serving food about a year ago, Helland said people who go through town for the Conger Meat Market & Locker and the elevator have added to the store’s business. Helland buys all the meat she serves at the meat market, and Helland said the community supports the municipal store.

“When the city owns it, they’ll stop just to say hi for ten minutes when they’re going through just because they live in town and they’re part of the community. It’s really supported by that,” Helland said.