Revered Convenience Store Chain Wawa Seeks To Double Store Count, Enter New States
A convenience store chain that enjoys a fiercely devoted following in its home market is betting that it can capture loyalty across a much larger swath of the country.
Wawa plans to double its current count of 965 stores by 2030, partly by expanding into more states, the Philadelphia Business Journal reports. The chain spent decades focused on the Philly area, including parts of New Jersey and Delaware, before expanding in recent years to Maryland, Washington, D.C., Virginia and Florida.
The company's growth will come not just in quantity of stores, but variety. Wawa plans to add locations in its traditional mold of stores on commercial roads in densely populated areas, as well as larger locations, known to locals as "Super Wawas," situated off commuter highways and interstates, often with gas pumps, PBJ reports.
Even without gas pumps, more highway and car-oriented locations could be added through Wawa's partnership with Tesla, PBJ reports. The chain is already the retailer with the most Tesla supercharger stations in the U.S., with 675 such stations across 82 locations. Expansion of a recently launched pilot of drive-thru stores in Pennsylvania and Florida is also on the horizon.
To meet its goal of cracking 1,800 locations in less than a decade, Wawa expects to eventually hit a pace of more than 100 openings per year in both its established markets and markets it has yet to enter, PBJ reports. Wawa already controls over 300 sites for future locations within its established markets, where virtually all of its 54 planned openings in 2022 will occur.
Part of its expansion in the next few years will include attempting to stitch its coverage areas together by adding stores in North Carolina, South Carolina and possibly Georgia, Wawa CEO Chris Gheysens told PBJ. In addition to North Carolina, Wawa's next frontiers for expansion will likely be in the Florida Panhandle and South Alabama, the company announced in a press release on April 18.
Wawa's confidence in success there comes from the popularity of its southernmost store in Virginia, where customers report stocking up on the chain's products for road trips through southern states, Gheysens said. After opening its first Florida store in Orlando in 2012, Wawa now operates over 250 stores in the state.
Another company that reports similar devotion in its home region is Texas-based Buc-ee's, which boasts a reputation for sparkling clean bathrooms and its own brand of corn puffs known as Beaver Nuggets. Buc-ee's began adding stores in Alabama, Georgia and Florida in 2019, and plans to open locations in Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky and South Carolina in the next five years. Soon, Buc-ee's and Wawa could be pitting their local treasure statuses against each other in a head-to-head competition for new customers across the Southeast.
