Kroger May Sell Off Its Convenience Store Chains, Including Kwik Shop, Tom Thumb, Turkey Hill

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Re: Kroger May Sell Off Its Convenience Store Chains, Including Kwik Shop, Tom Thumb, Turkey Hill

Post by storewanderer »

jamcool wrote: April 25th, 2018, 12:01 am The only real “star” of the Kroger c-stores is Turkey Hill, which will probably be expanded under the EG ownership.
I think Loaf N Jug is also pretty good. Quik Stop is terrible due to the condition of its sites and the inconsistencies that come from the franchise model they have (though, it does function well as a c-store with cheap gas and good specials in the stores). Kwik Shop also seems to be pretty terrible. Not sure about Tom Thumb as I've never been there.
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Re: Kroger May Sell Off Its Convenience Store Chains, Including Kwik Shop, Tom Thumb, Turkey Hill

Post by pseudo3d »

Yeah, EG Group is not in the best position with its stores. If they want to be a success, they should form a new brand name (or adopt one of the names, Turkey Hill probably is the best if they want to go that route). A lot of the most successful gas brands (Wawa, Sheetz, QuikTrip, etc.) have all been new-builds, and I think that's also why Corner Store launched Corner Store Market complete with an entirely new logo--to separate out their "flagship" stores from the massive amount of old stores that they inherited from various smaller operators.
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Re: Kroger May Sell Off Its Convenience Store Chains, Including Kwik Shop, Tom Thumb, Turkey Hill

Post by storewanderer »

pseudo3d wrote: April 26th, 2018, 9:29 am Yeah, EG Group is not in the best position with its stores. If they want to be a success, they should form a new brand name (or adopt one of the names, Turkey Hill probably is the best if they want to go that route). A lot of the most successful gas brands (Wawa, Sheetz, QuikTrip, etc.) have all been new-builds, and I think that's also why Corner Store launched Corner Store Market complete with an entirely new logo--to separate out their "flagship" stores from the massive amount of old stores that they inherited from various smaller operators.
This raises a good point. Who is going to keep the Kroger c-store logo? That logo was meant to designate the 4 c-store brands. It had nothing to do with the supermarket fuel centers.

Here in Reno the gas pumps at both Smiths and Quik Stop still have both names on the pumps and say "Kroger Stores" at the bottom. There is no sign of ownership change or separation of the c-stores. My purchase in Quik Stop yesterday still earned fuel points. There is still 3 cents off per gallon with the Smith's Card automatically. I was actually wondering if maybe these weren't sold. There are 20-30 c-stores that Kroger did not sell... I have confirmed with the franchisee of one of the Quik Stops that the sites were sold to EG Group.
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Re: Kroger May Sell Off Its Convenience Store Chains, Including Kwik Shop, Tom Thumb, Turkey Hill

Post by SamSpade »

The stores in metro Lincoln and Omaha seem to vary in size and age. The newer ones are on pretty decent sized lots and have a typically sized Kroger fuel island area.

There are no Kroger supermarkets in Lincoln, but 45 miles away in Omaha there are Baker's stores, which are part of the Dillon's division. While there, this sign was in a market:
Image
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Re: Kroger May Sell Off Its Convenience Store Chains, Including Kwik Shop, Tom Thumb, Turkey Hill

Post by storewanderer »

SamSpade wrote: May 1st, 2018, 9:54 pm The stores in metro Lincoln and Omaha seem to vary in size and age. The newer ones are on pretty decent sized lots and have a typically sized Kroger fuel island area.

There are no Kroger supermarkets in Lincoln, but 45 miles away in Omaha there are Baker's stores, which are part of the Dillon's division. While there, this sign was in a market:
Image
No signs like this in Reno with Smiths or Quik Stop. This has always been a little bit of an odd bridging market. Maybe it is so few locations that so far things here have "slipped through" and the rewards program continues here as it has been before (.03 per gallon off everyday, still buy 4 get 1 free dispenser drinks, and 2 fuel points for every $1 spent in the c-store on merchandise). The Kroger brand items have been discontinued, however. The Quik Stops in California do not participate in fuel rewards but the Nevada ones do.
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Re: Kroger May Sell Off Its Convenience Store Chains, Including Kwik Shop, Tom Thumb, Turkey Hill

Post by pseudo3d »

I'm going to check around at the Kroger convenience stores to see if those have been sold or not. I can't imagine the Kroger-branded store in College Station was actually sold. The rest of the Houston division has Kroger gas canopies, but where the convenience stores exist, they're branded as Kwik Shop (even if the gas brand is still Kroger). I wonder if Kroger will either rebrand the Kwik Shops (former Albertsons Express) to Kroger, or de-brand the Kroger from the Kwik Shops and have them get Shell/Exxon brands. Probably the former, as they push gas rewards pretty heavily...but I'm not sure.
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Re: Kroger May Sell Off Its Convenience Store Chains, Including Kwik Shop, Tom Thumb, Turkey Hill

Post by storewanderer »

pseudo3d wrote: May 4th, 2018, 7:39 am I'm going to check around at the Kroger convenience stores to see if those have been sold or not. I can't imagine the Kroger-branded store in College Station was actually sold. The rest of the Houston division has Kroger gas canopies, but where the convenience stores exist, they're branded as Kwik Shop (even if the gas brand is still Kroger). I wonder if Kroger will either rebrand the Kwik Shops (former Albertsons Express) to Kroger, or de-brand the Kroger from the Kwik Shops and have them get Shell/Exxon brands. Probably the former, as they push gas rewards pretty heavily...but I'm not sure.
Those stores in Texas were not sold. They were not part of the c-store division. I am not sure why they had a c-store banner, maybe at one time they were part of the c-store division...?

In Memphis they have Kwik Shops in Kroger parking lots that were part of the c-store division and excluded from the sale to EG. My understanding is there were 20-30 c-stores like this scattered across the territories that were not sold to EG Group and typically this is because they were in the same parking lot as an existing Kroger store. I understand there is a particularly high concentration of these sites retained in Colorado.

I am not really sure why in Memphis these were in the c-store division (a long ways from any other Kwik Shop) but in Texas they were not...

I am still curious who keeps the odd looking logo...
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Re: Kroger May Sell Off Its Convenience Store Chains, Including Kwik Shop, Tom Thumb, Turkey Hill

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote: May 4th, 2018, 12:30 pm
pseudo3d wrote: May 4th, 2018, 7:39 am I'm going to check around at the Kroger convenience stores to see if those have been sold or not. I can't imagine the Kroger-branded store in College Station was actually sold. The rest of the Houston division has Kroger gas canopies, but where the convenience stores exist, they're branded as Kwik Shop (even if the gas brand is still Kroger). I wonder if Kroger will either rebrand the Kwik Shops (former Albertsons Express) to Kroger, or de-brand the Kroger from the Kwik Shops and have them get Shell/Exxon brands. Probably the former, as they push gas rewards pretty heavily...but I'm not sure.
Those stores in Texas were not sold. They were not part of the c-store division. I am not sure why they had a c-store banner, maybe at one time they were part of the c-store division...?

In Memphis they have Kwik Shops in Kroger parking lots that were part of the c-store division and excluded from the sale to EG. My understanding is there were 20-30 c-stores like this scattered across the territories that were not sold to EG Group and typically this is because they were in the same parking lot as an existing Kroger store. I understand there is a particularly high concentration of these sites retained in Colorado.

I am not really sure why in Memphis these were in the c-store division (a long ways from any other Kwik Shop) but in Texas they were not...

I am still curious who keeps the odd looking logo...
The logo is probably Kroger's, as I saw that there was some recent thing where Tom Thumb (Kroger) had a donation and they used Tom Thumb's old (pre-Kroger homogenization) logo. That being said, I'm sure EG Group and Kroger have some sort of licensing deal that will let them use the logo for the near future.

As for Texas, the Kwik Shops were all part of Albertsons Express, and weren't built by Kroger. I don't know what they were branded as (if anything) in the early 2000s when they purchased the stores, though.
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Re: Kroger May Sell Off Its Convenience Store Chains, Including Kwik Shop, Tom Thumb, Turkey Hill

Post by storewanderer »

Few changes over at Quik Stop (all the ones that got communicated heavily to customers elsewhere it appears, but here, the only way you know anything is going on is by looking at your receipt):

1. All "Quik Stop Clubs have ended" says the receipt. But there are still some signs in the location that refer to the clubs.
2. The take survey for free 32oz Fountain Drink or 50 Fuel Points is still printing on the receipt at the location I visited tonight (this is a corporate location), but has stopped printing on the receipts at franchise locations I visited last month.
3. No more earning of fuel points in the store on merchandise purchases
4. 3 cents off per gallon everyday still works with Kroger loyalty card
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Re: Kroger May Sell Off Its Convenience Store Chains, Including Kwik Shop, Tom Thumb, Turkey Hill

Post by Bakeragr »

I believe the c-stores in the Memphis market were acquired from Schnucks, who may have inherited them from Sessel’s/Albertsons. When Schnucks sold their Memphis stores, the c-stores were rebranded “Kwik Shop” but apparently were really run under the Tom Thumb store division.
On a separate note, if you go to that Kroger Corporate link (www.bakersplus.com/cstores), the stores listed as sold to EG group don’t list most of the Turkey Hill stores. Not sure why. Looks like EG really acquired a grab bag of stores with little market penetration. To me, the only option will be to sell the stores off piecemeal in each market.
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