The Trails North Car and Truck Stop is re-opening.

Murray and Donna Swales have sold the Alaska Highway landmark to business partners Dave Jack and Rhonda L'Henaff.

Jack and L'Henaff are hoping to have the doors open no later than May 1, they explained in an interview Tuesday afternoon while sitting in the freshly painted restaurant area. Most of the same pictures of big trucks are ready to go back up on the walls.

Not much is going to be different about the operation, Jack said.

The menu of homemade comfort food is going to be more or less the same, though they expect to have the restaurant open until midnight to keep the liquor offsales outlet open until then.

The gas bar, he said, will remain full-service.

"I had to buy myself a job,” Jack chuckled. "It just came up in conversation one day and so we went down and met Donna at Coldwell Banker and had a look at some of the numbers.

"The numbers looked good, so we ended coming up three or four times to look around.”

"It was the fit we were looking for,” Murray Swales said of the Jack and L'Henaff partnership.

"We got what we were looking for.”

There were a few inquiries over the months since the Swales shut down the business last summer because of health issues, said Donna.

She and Murray, however, were not just shopping around for any buyer, but wanted someone who was committed to the time and effort required to maintain Trails North as a favourite for local residents.

It's the support from locals, she insisted, that makes the business.

Summer highway traffic and high rates of occupancy for the six hotel rooms during the tourist season are certainly a bonus, Donna said.

There are the regular long-haul truckers who routinely stop in, like the American couple who transport expensive antique and unique cars back and forth between the Lower 48 and Alaska.

Donna said about six weeks ago the couple called up to let Murray know they were at the weigh scales with an old Bentley on board, if he cared to come up and have a peek.

But it is the locals who make Trails North what it is, she said.

"This was a big part of our life for the last five or six years.”

Jack brings with him 25 years' experience in the hospitality industry. Most recently, he was employed as manager of the Edgewater Hotel.

L'Henaff leaves behind a career as a financial planner at a local bank.

Trails North employed 16 full- and part-time staff under the Swales and the new owners expect to carry about the same.

They've already had inquiries from a couple of former employees, and expect they'll fill the roster fairly quickly once they've got the phone back in service soon.

As part of the deal, Murray will be on hand for at a least a month to help Jack and L'Henaff get used to the ropes, and Donna plans to be around for the first little while to walk them through the bookkeeping aspects of the business.

And after that, it will be "boating and travelling,” said Donna.

"And in between, they're coming in for a bit every day,” L'Henaff quipped.

"To eat lunch, or cook lunch?” asked Jack.