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CONVENIENCE STORE WARS: Sheetz Cuts the Ribbon on First Montco Location, Right Across the Street from a Wawa
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Crossing Broad had live team coverage of Sheetz opening its first Montco store on Thursday. I took some shitty photos and video for social media and then Russ walked us through the touch screen offerings:
The place was packed to the gills ahead of the ribbon cutting. Part of that surely was due to free coffee and some giveaways and related hubbub, but you could hardly walk around in there before 10 a.m. People seemed genuinely psyched for Sheetz. Loyalist Montco Commissioner Neil Makhija came out in a Wawa hat and did the reluctant welcoming of Sheetz routine, but he was sincere in his remarks that Montco is open to competition and ready to host Sheetz and all of that. It was a pleasant ceremony in Limerick.
But it’s funny because 25 years ago the thought of a Sheetz and Wawa being right across the street from one another would have been absurd. Wawa had its territory in the Philadelphia region and Sheetz stayed out in Reading and the Lehigh Valley and everywhere north and west. But in the aggressive world of convenience stores that also pump gas, Wawa expanded outward (and down to Florida), Sheetz expanded inward, and here we are now. There are Sheetz and Wawa locations really close to each other in Allentown and other spots just outside of the Delaware Valley, but nothing in the counties that touch Philadelphia up until this week. There’s another Sheetz approved for Downingtown and that’s going to be finished next.
From a consumer standpoint, there’s really nothing wrong with options, is there? You want Wawa, it’s there. You want Sheetz, now it’s there, too. The funny thing about this particular location is that there are three Super Wawas within probably 3 miles of each other. There’s this one, at Ridge Pike and Lewis Road, there’s one at Ridge Pike and Township Line, and there’s one down Lewis near the 422 ramp. So there’s been Wawa oversaturation, and you ask a lot of people and they think Wawa’s quality has declined over the years, that the bread isn’t as good as it used to be and that the deli meat is lower quality and all of that. It’s not made up; it’s a totally real thing. And Wawa in the city proper and over to Delco has to compete with all of the great delis that make the highest quality food.
Personally, I’m still loyal to Wawa, but I’ll go to Sheetz if they open more of them around here. I used to be staunchly anti-Sheetz because of its association with delusional Yinzers and Happy Valley cultists, but I feel like Wawa is just doing the bare minimum in its home region, just maintaining the status quo because they know we’re gonna patronize even while they expand all over the east coast. I wouldn’t mind a renewed push from Wawa, like a marketing campaign to take back the Delaware Valley. “We don’t take our customers for granted, and now we’re taking back our home turf.” It would be good for “content” purposes, wouldn’t it? Have the Wawa marketing people call our people.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com