Most intriguing story of the day goes to Emma Dooling at the Philadelphia Business Journal, who wrote about the Drexel Wawa testing a new format:

Writes Dooling:

When the Wawa opened in September 2018, Drexel said the 8,760-square-foot location was Wawa’s “newest and largest urban design prototype in Philadelphia,” with both indoor and outdoor seating, third-party delivery and mobile ordering through the Wawa app. Wawa CEO Chris Gheysens told the Business Journal last year that the Drexel location was the highest food-service store in the entire chain pre-pandemic.

In a statement to the Business Journal, Wawa said the remodeled location will allow busy customers to receive their orders faster. The company did not disclose whether it planned to open or convert more stores to the fully digital format.

Of course, Wawa will not say the obvious part out loud, which is that you can’t ransack a store that has no shelves. They’ve closed a half-dozen locations in the city since 2020, which is the result of crime and panhandling and a general lack of basic human function in Kenney and Krasner’s Philadelphia. That will likely change when Cherelle Parker thumps David Oh and takes office.

That said, we’d be naive to think that every Wawa location in Philadelphia is the same. Those three University City spots are right in the heart of Penn and Drexel and don’t seem to have any issues. There’s the one over at 21st and Hamilton, then some old school Wawas in the various non-Center City neighborhoods as well. You’ve got 3-4 alone along the River Wards corridor, up Aramingo and into Bridesburg. If you do have to go to a Wawa on Aramingo, go to the one near the Walmart and Lowe’s and avoid the one next to the Applebee’s and Rite Aid. That Wawa location is basically the 9th circle of hell. Dante wrote about it back in the day. There are a million mofos in there at all hours of the day and you’ll spend 10 minutes waiting in line while the clerk tries to find the right pack of cigarettes for the degenerate in the front. You will regret going to that Wawa, I promise you.

Here’s another link to the full story at the Biz Journal.

EDIT – an earlier version of this story noted that the store has “nothing on the shelves,” but it actually has no shelves at all