“After 21 years living on Bainbridge Island, Matt and Marie Randish have a pretty good idea of what will and will not appeal to customers.That local knowledge is why they think they can succeed with a convenience store/gas station on High School Road where Arco failed.Bainbridge Island is a unique market, Matt said. Arco is a good company, and has a stamp-out program that is generally successful. But it didn’t fit on the island.The Randishes recently purchased the facility from Arco, which closed the store on Jan. 18. After two-plus weeks of remodeling, the Randishes will reopen next week – Monday is the target day – as M&M Market and Deli. They will switch to Texaco gasoline. More important in their minds, they will change the Arco policies that repelled islanders.Whereas Arco did not accept credit cards, they will – both in the store and at the pump. They will not require drivers to pre-pay for gasoline. The air and water will be free. And they will accept checks, which Arco didn’t.Matt said that the store, which opened in January 1999, never performed up to Arco’s expectations.They contacted me in August of 1999, saying they wanted to divest the site and asking if I would be interested in buying, he said. I assume they got in touch with me because I live on the island, and have other operations like this.Randish also owns a station in Poulsbo, next to Central Market, and recently sold a station in Port Orchard.They wanted me to take it on as a franchise operation, but I wasn’t interested in that. I didn’t hear from them for a while – I assume they were trying to find another buyer – then they got in touch with me again, and we bought the site.(Arco representatives declined to comment for this story.)The store is independent, Randish said, not a franchise. He has a contract to buy gasoline from Texaco, but the store has no affiliation with the Island Center station that also sells Texaco gasoline.Matt Randish’s whole career has been in the retail grocery business. His father owned grocery stores in Seattle, and he grew up in Bellevue. He went to work for Albertson’s and moved into management, then bought the Red Apple market in Bremerton.I was on the board of trustees of Harrison Hospital, he said. When they began planning their south county campus, they had a couple of spaces on the property for retail. So I opened a convenience store and gasoline station there, he said of the Port Orchard location.Later, he and his wife started the Poulsbo store. But although they have lived on the island since 1979, he had never had a business here, and did not think he ever would.There are so few locations here, he said. The market is pretty well locked up. I did not expect to have a store here.The High School Road parking lot was jammed Monday morning this week with workers’ cars and trucks.Outside, a crew was putting in the tank and pump that will dispense diesel fuel, which will soon be offered. Inside, more than a dozen people were drilling, pounding, painting and generally creating turmoil.We’re actually not doing as much changing as it may look like, Marie Randish said. We’re changing a lot of the counters and doing lots of small things.The aisles have been reconfigured to improve the traffic flow and create more room, Marie said. The new store will carry some 3,500 items, compared to about 2,200 in the old store.They will emphasize food. The store will offer hot pizza, make-it-yourself submarine sandwiches and deli sandwiches made on-site each day.They will also have a soup bar and a coffee bar featuring the Seattle’s Best line.We’re going to be aggressive, Matt said. A receipt from a gas fill-up will get you discounts on pizza, or on motor oil, he said.While the new store will take up most of their time for the immediate future – we’ll be totally hands-on for awhile, Marie said – Matt expects to be back coaching Babe Ruth baseball this summer.I’ve coached at every level of the baseball program, from T-ball up to Babe Ruth, he said. We’re going to sponsor a Babe Ruth team this summer. We’re going to be part of this community, he said. “