storewanderer wrote:7-Eleven had a store here in Reno for a while on Longley Lane which was considered their biggest store in the world. I think some Asian location has since claimed that distinction. Anyway it is a large store still. Easily triple the size of a normal 7-Eleven. It was bought from someone called "Express SuperMart" who tried a concept of gas station convenience with grocery store prices and an expanded selection. They did well with this location (the first one) but their next two locations struggled and they ended up selling to 7-Eleven.
7-Eleven reconfigured the place and installed its own fixtures/layout so now the place is a standard 7-Eleven but it has more aisles, so perhaps a few more dry items. The fixtures and equipment all look very old, mostly beige or silver colored counters and fixtures, probably brought in used from other locations. The areas for soda, coffee, hot food, etc. are the standard old 7-Eleven mix, looks the same as they looked 25 years ago.
Yeah, and the giant Stripes I alluded to was a bit different, it was styled after Buc-ee's, a Texas chain of convenience stores located near highways and reaching 60,000 square feet (with a huge restroom area, a big deli area that makes sandwiches, a large gift shop area, etc.), and was called Chicks. It wasn't long after they opened that they were hit with a trade dress infringement from Buc-ee's, because despite the local media pretending it was little more than the logo, they had too many similarities (including the merchandise mix, both chains had their own self-branded line of gourmet foods, and Chicks had a knockoff of the "Beaver Nuggets"...a bit hard to describe, imagine Cheetos but with a caramel coating instead, and that's the general idea). They also had a hamburger stand inside too (Buc-ee's makes sandwiches, generally). When Stripes bought them, the Chicks-branded product mix went away and was replaced with the typical Stripes mix. They replaced a frozen yogurt area with LTC, but kept the hamburgers. I can't imagine 7-Eleven keeping this store, especially since new-build Stripes are already pretty roomy compared to your typical 7-Eleven (7,000 square feet vs. 2,500 square feet)
Edit: It looks like the Reno 7-Eleven has an adjacent Wendy's and an Asian food place, were these part of the original development, or were they sub-leased later?
Edit 2: I'm still not entirely sure why this deal happened. Circle K was in expansion mode and Alimentation was looking for a rival to take over and expand their reach (CST Brands was the candidate), but for Sunoco and 7-Eleven it's a little different. 7-Eleven hasn't been as ambitious in expanding recently, is it just a reaction to Circle K and a desperate look around to try to expand in the same area that Circle K is going to hit hard and fast in, or was it on the part of Sunoco, and that the Stripes division was actually doing poorly? It's just a bit strange how short Sunoco was in control of Stripes. Valero fostered Corner Store for years (though it started with Diamond Shamrock) from a generic food mart for Diamond Shamrock stores to a convenience store brand with its own identity.
I'm also a bit skeptical of how many Stripes stores they'll keep, a lot of the more rural TETCO stores acquired (like Crockett) were never converted. One of Stripes' more recent acquisitions was Sac-N-Pac, a Central Texas chain that had the vast majority of its stores in small towns (suburbs or more rural areas, like "out on the highway out of town" or "small cluster of houses around a blinking light"). I just can't imagine 7-Eleven wanting to keep those, and trying to franchise those at 7-Eleven stores could be a hard sell. However, if that is the case, then assuming this is a numbers game (and 7-Eleven doesn't want ratty stores that were former Circle K stores) that's a sizeable portion of stores to lay waste to.