EDMONTON—Just off Alberta’s Highway 881, in the hamlet of Lac La Biche, an unassuming Shell station has picked up a steady stream of traffic in recent weeks.

As a reporter and photographer enter the combined store and cafe, a middle-aged man turns around to pose a question to the latest arrivals, the answer to which he clearly already knows.

“You’re here to see the bathroom, aren’t you?”

He’s right, of course.

Because this gas station is more Ritz stop than pit stop.

In July, Cintas Canada, headquartered in Mississauga, Ont., announced the five finalists in its annual “Best Restroom Contest,” which includes the Beaver Hill Shell in north-central Alberta.

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The contest’s criteria takes into consideration cleanliness, visual appeal, innovation, and unique design elements.

Besides the bragging rights that come with being crowned restroom royalty in Canada, Cintas will award the winner $2,500 in services to help keep the facilities fit for its new-found fame.

The Alberta nominee is up against Bauhaus Restaurant and Laurence and Chico Café in Vancouver, Cluny Bistro in Toronto, and Cosmos Café in Quebec City.

But for Mo Kabalan, who owns and operates the Alberta rest stop, a title was never the plan. Since he opened the station in December 2017, all he wanted was to create a commode known for its cleanliness and comfort, he says.

“Even being top five in Canada …” he says from the station’s cafe seating area, before pausing. “It’s nice when you do something, when you work hard for something, and somebody appreciates it.”

Its men’s and women’s rooms feature floor-to-wall tiles, topped with a heavy rope that lines each room and ties it together, and sits about three feet below a high ceiling that holds elegant, but simple, chandeliers.

The washing stations each contain two sinks and granite countertops, which are subtly set off with a herringbone pattern on the floor. Echoing the stall doors and the shelves mounted inside, the mirrors are framed in wood, and benefit from the glow of tungsten bulbs.

Even from inside the men’s washroom, visitors can hear the sounds of country music spilling past the saloon-style doors. That western motif, accentuated by the gas-line toilet-paper dispensers in the stalls, is Kabalan’s own touch, wanting the washrooms to have a uniquely Alberta feel — something those standing on ceremony might miss.

But both Kabalan and his wife had a heavy hand in the design, the nominee explains. And while he’s pleased with the appearance, cleanliness was his top priority — a directive also informed by his partner, who has had some unhappy experiences at rest-stop restrooms in the past.

“Whenever we’re driving anywhere, my wife won’t stop anywhere,” Kabalan says. “We’ll skip towns, we’ll skip everything. She would rather go on the side of the road than go into some of these places.”

His own sense of pride flows from seeing visitors pop into his designer toilets and walk out perplexed, trying to reconcile their restroom experience with the gas station they pulled up to. It’s not unusual to see staff members attend to the facilities right after they’ve been used. Employees there know, Kabalan adds, what the priorities are.

“I say, ‘Customer service, bathroom and then everything else,’” Kabalan says.

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He credits the appeal of the Beaver Hill Shell to a man named Glen Hommy, who Kabalan calls his mentor and who originally tried to help the Lac La Biche man set up a gas station in his former home of Fort McMurray.

“And then the fire happened,” Kabalan says, referring to the massive wildfire that rolled through the area in 2016. “We lost the house and everything.”

Kabalan and his family moved to Lac La Biche shortly after, already owning an acreage 20 kilometres north of the hamlet. So he set up shop near his new home instead, following his mentor’s lead, and remembering one cardinal piece of advice.

“‘Make sure the bathrooms are nice and clean,’” Kabalan recalls. “He said, ‘You build them, and they will come again.’”

And they have.

Besides the everyday flow of fuellers looking to fill up, the Beaver Hill Shell already has a group of steadies — four to nine women who meet there almost five days a week “to solve the problems of the world,” regular Margo Caron says.

“It’s got good coffee. Service is good. Staff is friendly, and management is more than obliging,” she says. “It’s just a good place to be.”

The group used to meet at a nearby A&W. That was before the restaurant renovated, she explains, and the women couldn’t find a fit for their larger gatherings. They had no idea about the restrooms at Kabalan’s place. When they changed venues in January, they were pleasantly surprised.

“It’s clean, spacious and very nice,” says Helen Faucher, another member of the party. “And it’s kept like that all the time.”

And it’s not just a filling station, she adds, pointing to the coffee bar, seating area, convenience store and cafe, which serves everything from sausage and eggs, to shawarma, to pizza cooked from scratch.

“They have everything you can think of in here. They have stuff here that we have never seen in town.”

As of July, that includes the restroom tourists who’ve been poking their heads in to catch a glimpse of the recently famed facility.

“When somebody comes in, we say, ‘The bathrooms are over there,’” Caron says with a chuckle. Her group’s regular table sits at the opposite end from the entrance, and offers a view of the hall to the toilets.

“As far as bathrooms go, if you’re on a trip and you have to pull off to the side to go to some service station to the bathroom, you’ll sometimes find that you don’t go to the bathroom, and wait, and hope the next one is better.”

Kabalan wants his washrooms to be the next one, and hopes people will remember it.

Later that afternoon, a Dodge Ram truck with young people in the cab, and one in the bed, peels into the parking lot behind the station. As two men hop out the passenger door and run up the side of the building, the woman at the wheel shouts a question in their direction.

“Is there even a washroom in there?!”

They shrug and plod on. The one in the bed follows shortly after, and then the driver.

They took their time.

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