Kim Martin: Returning home fuels the soul

Martin's dad, an employee at John Deere, accepted a transfer to New Jersey while she was a student at Moline High School. Starting a new school at 15 was hard enough, but New Jersey in the late 80's was a whole different animal, she said.

"It was a big adjustment, but I was only there for two years, and then we moved again," Martin said.

In 1991, the family moved to Augusta, GA, where Martin began her long career in the retail sector. Over the course of 25 years, she moved from Atlanta to North Carolina to Virginia before moving back to Georgia twice and finally landing in Pennsylvania.

Despite being nine hours from home, Martin said, she regularly returned to the Quad-Cities.

"Everywhere I went, I would always come home once or twice a year," she said. "All my family was here, so I came back a lot."

Despite the visits, she was always homesick. Finally, in 2012, she decided to make the big move back.

"I joke that it was either an epiphany or a result of divine intervention," she said.

Weeks away from closing on a house Pennsylvania, the second thoughts kicked in. The Quad-Cities was her home, and she knew she had to get back.

"I just never really felt like I was home there, which is why I came back here all the time," Martin said.

The transition home was difficult, largely because she'd lost touch with so many of her friends over the long years away. But Martin tapped into her roots in retail and started investing in several business ventures.

Meanwhile, she discovered a passion for fitness, and that's where a second epiphany came.

"I knew something that the Quad-Cities was really missing was anything fast and healthy," she said.

In 2017, she opened the first QC Fuel in Moline, followed by two more in 2019 and a fourth in Bettendorf in April 2022. Having dreamed of creating a Quad-City staple akin to Harris Pizza and Whitey's, Martin feels like she's on her way.

"When I opened my first location, I never opened it with the idea that I would just do one. I wanted to take over the Quad-Cities," she said.

The QC Fuel locations sell coffee, lattes, and healthy alternatives, like sugar-free drinks and protein shakes. Bringing food diversity to the Quad-Cities was her goal, but coming home supplied her with some diversity too.

On the East Coast, Martin lived primarily in small towns that didn't offer a sense of community or the mix of people she encountered growing up in the Quad-Cities and returning for visits. She said she now enjoys a blend of small-town camaraderie in a larger geographical area.

"This is the perfect place to have a family and run a small business," she said. "It's a big little town."

To her, the Quad-Cities always had charm. While she recognized the area had room for growth, she said, the region really capitalized on it while she was away. 

"Having grown up here and knowing what was here ... I really just didn't want my kids to be stuck in a small town and not have these experiences," she said. "Before, you could turn left to civilization or turn right to go to the cornfields, and now it's all developed."

Martin and her husband now are enjoying living along the Mississippi River in Pleasant Valley and continuing with their entrepreneurial endeavors. And, it's all because she came back home.

"I think if anyone screams the benefits of leaving and coming back, it's me," she said.