You Can't Make This Stuff Up!

[Lee Stewart]

[Lee Stewart]

If you lived in Brazil in 1987, you could have bought one of these.

[Lee Stewart]

The Lone Star State is awfully fond of convenience stores, according to the Association for Convenience and Petroleum Retailing, with nearly 16,000 of them sprinkled across Texas. California is a distant second with close to 12,000; Florida is third with nearly 10,000.

[Lee Stewart]

Unlike other retail sectors that are saturated with large, national chains, most convenience stores are mom-and-pop retailers. More than 62% are run by single-store operators.

[Lee Stewart]

Unsurprisingly, convenience stores are not the place we linger, according to industry data. Customers spend an average of just 3.5 minutes inside, compared with 41 minutes on any given visit to the grocery store.

[Lee Stewart]

Just slightly over half of convenience-store customers go in to buy a beverage. About 40% of convenience store shoppers have joined some sort of beverage loyalty program, and the biggest beverage fans make three visits for coffee and over four visits for fountain drinks each week.

[Lee Stewart]

A Dairy Queen owner in Kansas City invented the iconic drink by mistake in the 1950s. Because his soda fountain was on the fritz, he popped some soda bottles into the freezer to cool them quickly. Customers who loved the icy result requested the sodas that had been in the freezer longer, leading him to create a slushy machine using a car's air conditioner. 7-Eleven licensed the machine and renamed the drink the Slurpee in the mid-'60s.

[Lee Stewart]

Joe Coulombe, better known to shoppers as the founder of Trader Joe's, got his start in the late 1950s as the owner of Pronto Market, a small California convenience-store chain. But he knew the rapid expansion of 7-Eleven would make turning a profit increasingly difficult, so he decided to try out the grocery business instead. The rest, of course, is history.

[Lee Stewart]

Convenience stores are usually known for hot dogs, chips, candy, and beef jerky, but East Coast chain Wawa is beloved for its made-to-order sandwiches and hoagies. The sandwiches are so adored that Wawa beat out sandwich chains including Firehouse Subs, Jersey Mike's, and Subway in a Market Force survey of more than 11,000 consumers in 2018. One of its most famous options: The Gobbler, made with turkey, gravy, stuffing, and cranberry sauce.

[Lee Stewart]

Most convenience stores are small, but don't tell that to the Buc-ee's in New Braunfels, Texas, outside San Antonio. It's spread over 67,000 square feet, which means it could fit about 22 standard 7-Elevens inside, and boasts 120 gas pumps, 83 bathroom stalls, 1,000 parking spaces, and 31 cash registers, according to The Balance.