Convenience store offers Internet access

RENO, Nev. - Before you leave the convenience store, be sure to check if you've got bread, if you've got milk and - oh yes - if you've got mail. Customers at Winners Corner stores can now surf the Internet.

Eight TellerQuick Internet ready terminals are being installed this week at stores in northern Nevada, which will serve as a test market to see how people respond to ATM-style Internet access.

The kiosks are a three-part unit with separate terminals for ATM transactions, prepaid phone and Internet card sales and Internet transactions.

Machines will allow individuals to withdraw money, do Internet banking, check e-mails and surf the Web.

Daniel Pina, 34, founder and chairman of TellerQuick International, said his company - Evergreen Teller Services Inc. - is used to handling ATM services locally for grocery stores, banks, casinos and ski resorts.

Pina said he chose Reno as a test market because of the relationship he has with Winners Corner and the proximity to the company's headquarters in Grass Valley, Calif.

Other test areas will be Los Angeles and San Francisco. The company plans to test about 50 machines to gauge interest for the next 90 days, before deciding on expansion plans.

''Reno was a good cross section of the population,'' Pina said. ''People may stop to check their e-mail if they are stranded because of weather.''

Pina started Evergreen Enterprises seven years ago. It handles about 2,000 ATM machines in 40 states and employs 25 people.

''It is really a company we built from the ground up,'' Pina told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

Robb Smith of Howard Consultants and Millennium Three Venture Group in Reno helped write the company's business plan.

''They offer a full service, multimedia Internet access system, all in one unit,'' Smith said. ''If you look at things three years down the road, when everyone has a video phone at home, people may use the service to talk face to face from the 7-Eleven.

''The usefulness of what they do is only limited by the usefulness of the Internet and that is showing no limits,'' Smith said.