“It’s a little slice of heaven in the country,” Hemsley said of the town where he was born and raised, graduated high school, and now owns a growing list of businesses. “It’s away from all the noise. It’s where everybody knows everybody, and you can come home and see your neighbor at the grocery store or at the gas station. It just feels like you never left.”

That feeling of belonging and home runs through every project Hemsley has taken on in Franklin County—and that list continues to grow.

Ask Hemsley about Idaho, and he’ll tell you about fourth grade, memorizing the state bird and state tree alongside all the state’s other fourth graders, never imagining how deep those roots might grow. He’s traveled widely, but he always finds his way back.

“Idaho is home,” he said simply. “It’s where my family is. It’s where my grandparents grew up, and it’s now where I own businesses and a ranch.”

This sense of inheritance—of being handed something precious and striving to protect it—shapes how Hemsley talks about Preston’s Main Street. Like a lot of small towns in America, Preston’s storefronts have gone dark over the years, squeezed by online shopping, a global pandemic, and the easy pull of bigger cities down the highway.

“My goal, along with my family and my team, is to revive Preston to what it used to be,” Hemsley said. He envisions a town with bustling shops that cater to folks who want to walk, shop, and enjoy the beating heart of downtown. It’s not just about commerce, he’s quick to add, but restoring the kinds of spaces where neighbors actually run into each other again.

Hemsley’s vision for downtown extends beyond any single business and includes the unglamorous infrastructure that makes a town function—streetlamps, sidewalks, trees, fountains, and benches. “Preston is a drive-thru town right now,” he said, “but I want to make it a destination.”

Long before Hemsley was buying buildings, he was a Utah State University student, just 25 minutes from home, going back to Preston to bake cookies at his mom’s house. That kitchen produced the first batch of what would become Crumbl, the cookie company Hemsley co-founded in 2017. “I still own the first oven that we ever made the cookies in—it’s actually sitting in one of my businesses just down the street,” he laughed.

Hemsley hasn’t forgotten who showed up first. “My community here in Preston would drive down to our first store, and we would do cookie runs up here. They were one of our first supporters,” he said. “They truly helped us spread the word and build Crumbl.”

For Hemsley, Crumbl’s success created a debt of gratitude, and reinvesting in Preston is how he’s chosen to pay it.

Few projects capture Hemsley’s approach better than Polar Bear Eats, the diner he rebuilt on the site where his father once ran a car dealership. The original Polar Bear opened in the 1950s and became a fixture of Preston life for generations—the kind of place kids gathered after baseball games and scouting trips up the canyon. It served up hot dogs in its earliest days and eventually offered an expanded menu and full diner experience that locals loved. When it closed more than a decade ago, the town felt the loss. “Everyone was sad. They were devastated,” Hemsley recalled.

So he bought the name and the original recipes and started over, this time on a plot of land with sweeping views of the Idaho countryside. “When can you ever eat a burger with this view?” he asked. The new Polar Bear is modeled closely on the 1950s original, right down to a vintage swivel sign. Car hop stalls let guests order from their vehicles via QR code, complete with a tray that clips to the window, and finished orders are still called out over an old-style intercom. Even the bun gets a brand stamp reading “Polar Bear Eats / Preston, Idaho.”

It’s classic diner fare done well—burgers and shakes first, but also chicken Malibu sandwiches, English chips, mozzarella sticks, and $1 soft-serve. Behind the counter, there are deliberate nods to nostalgia, including a life-sized polar bear photo spot, an ice-cave backdrop dressed with real moss, and an old-fashioned wash basin called the “Polar Plunge,” where ranch hands and travelers alike can clean up before they eat. The whole place, Hemsley said, is built to be an experience, not just a meal.

A few doors down sits Pop ‘N Pins, the bowling alley that gained fame as a filming location in “Napoleon Dynamite,” though it was a Preston institution long before the camera crews rolled into town. Hemsley grew up bowling there in middle school P.E. class, learning to keep score by hand.

Now under renovation, Pop ‘N Pins is being restored with a 1970s-era color palette—oranges, creams, golds—redrawing the bowling alley’s original branding from decades past. The giant pin out front, an unofficial town landmark, isn’t going anywhere, though residents can look forward to updated equipment and a new event space for birthday parties, league nights, and gatherings. The renovation aims to modernize the bones of the place while keeping its soul intact, and Hemsley knows that includes ties to “Napoleon Dynamite,” too. The team has preserved pieces of movie memorabilia, including a bowling ball signed by the actor who played Uncle Rico, and plans to make the alley a stop for travelers tracing filming locations through town.

But if there’s one building in town that carries the most sentimental weight for Hemsley personally, it’s the old King’s Variety Store on Main Street—a regional chain that once anchored small towns across Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming, and whose basement “Toy Land” was, in Hemsley’s words, the most magical place a kid without access to big-box stores could imagine.

When King’s closed and the building sat vacant for years, Hemsley knew he wanted to bring it back to life. His plans call for a space built around community, including food, classes, crafts, and a market-meets-department-store concept that will unfold across seven connected storefronts, opening into one shared space—something between a food hall, a neighborhood market, and a community gathering place. The space will include a coffee shop, a frozen yogurt concept, and curated retail, and, in tribute to the King’s Variety Store of yesteryear (which always smelled like popcorn), Hemsley also plans to bring the tradition back with gourmet popcorn and rotating flavors. The market will also sell raw, organic milk, cheese, butter, and yogurt sourced from the valley’s own dairies, as well as take-home and family meals in the freezer section under the Hemsley Ranch brand. Visitors can also look forward to a small trading company section featuring thoughtfully curated goods, gifts, and fresh flowers.

Adjoining buildings are being renovated to create a destination for the community. One will serve as a venue for weddings, recitals, celebrations, and other gatherings, while another will become a dedicated candy shop and candy kitchen, where handcrafted candies and specialty chocolates will be made on-site. Classes from floral design and sourdough baking to art and candy making will be held within Kings Market, creating opportunities for people to gather, learn, and connect year-round.

“We envision Kings Market as a place where people can come to work remotely, meet friends, or gather with family in a comfortable, elevated environment,” said Hemsley. “It will be so much more than a place to shop.”

Tied to the project is Hemsley’s newest food concept, Idaho Boy, centered entirely around the potato as a deliberate nod to the state’s identity. The plan includes a potato bar with protein bowls and sandwiches, and tortillas made from sweet potatoes.

Alongside Hemsley’s interest in animal agriculture is his interest in agronomy, extending beyond food systems. It makes sense that Hemsley’s desire for growth began in the natural world, where an early love of plants led him to save tips from waiting tables so he could re-landscape his parents’ yard. Eventually, this interest led him to buy a flower shop (one of only two in town) and Preston’s only nursery, a business with 60 years of history serving the town’s funerals, proms, and celebrations alike, with three separate greenhouses.

He rebranded it as Hemsley Ranch Gardens, an extension of his family’s ranching operation, and filled it with curated gifts, candies, kids’ toys, and home goods that are otherwise hard to find in a small Idaho town. Alongside the nursery’s core business of flowers, perennials, and houseplants, they also host seasonal classes and have become an informal gathering space for portraits and small private events.

“I think people need to find joy and excitement, but also help beautify our community,” Hemsley said. Eventually, he hopes to grow the shop’s flowers at the family ranch itself, inviting the community to cut their own arrangements straight from the field.

Now, Hemsley Ranch, which spans 140 acres, is part working ranch—Highland cattle, chickens, horses, alpacas, and a rotating potato crop—and part retreat, with a guesthouse hosting visitors from across the state and country.

The ranch holds a horse-racing program that competes at meets throughout the region, called Hemsley Ranch Racing, proudly led by Lance Hemsley, Sawyer’s father. There, you’ll also find a pet cow named Jessica, and 4-H show pigs and calves hosted for nieces and nephews. There’s a plan, still taking shape, for beef cattle the family intends to raise and butcher for sale throughout Idaho. Future plans include a venue barn for larger events, an Airbnb already available for corporate retreats and family reunions, and an eventual wellness retreat with a sauna, cold plunge, and gym space.

Hemsley credits his grandfather—a respected 4-H leader who taught generations of local kids to ride and train horses through a program called the River Riders—with planting the seeds of his connection to ranch life. His mother and her siblings grew up on horseback; his brother competed in high school rodeo. “Ranch life has always been in my blood,” Hemsley said.

For all the buildings, menus, and renovations, Hemsley returns to the idea that none of it is really about the businesses themselves.

“It’s about building community spaces and places that connect people,” he said. “It’s all about experiences and creating places where people can meet and share moments.”

Hemsley is deeply grateful for his hometown, and he speaks wistfully about the decline of small towns across the country, and the responsibility to step up where he can. “It almost makes me feel like I can leave a little part of my legacy in the town that I love so much,” he said. He hopes that, more than square footage or revenue, he’s able to give Preston more than he’s taken—to put it on the map for the right reasons.

But Hemsley isn’t chasing fame for Preston—there’s a protectiveness in how he talks about the valley and the state of Idaho. He wants people to discover it, but he half-jokes about wanting to keep it secret, too.

“I think it’s one of the best states in all 50,” Hemsley said of Idaho. “We have a little bit of everything—mountains, flatlands—but most importantly, we have the best people.”