Wawa Ends 24 Hour Operations at Some Stores

[Alpha8472]

Wawa is ending 24 hour operation at multiple stores in Philadelphia's Center City neighborhood. Seven out of 12 Wawa stores now close before midnight. One Philadelphia store recently switched to an 8 PM closure and another closes at 11 PM.

Employees commented off the record that it was due to excessive panhandling.

https://www.csnews.com/wawa-ends-24-hou ... t-c-stores

[storewanderer]

Wawa is ending 24 hour operation at multiple stores in Philadelphia's Center City neighborhood. Seven out of 12 Wawa stores now close before midnight. One Philadelphia store recently switched to an 8 PM closure and another closes at 11 PM.

Employees commented off the record that it was due to excessive panhandling.

https://www.csnews.com/wawa-ends-24-hou ... t-c-stores

There are issues with closing overnight too. Being open tends to help prevent vandalism, loitering, etc. At the same time staffing overnight is increasingly difficult.

[reymann]

i feel like this will start becoming more of a trend with the ongoing labor shortage going on. i wouldn't be surprised to see more c-stores resort to closing between midnight-6am.

[storewanderer]

Realistically chains need to make the hours what makes sense for a given location. Consistency is good and all but the reality is if not every 7-Eleven is 24 hours, I don't think it will kill the brand for customers. These graveyard shifts aren't real safe. For a chain like Wawa with many higher volume locations and large fueling areas at major offramps and other busy areas I can see how the decision to shift downtown stores to a non-24 hour schedule was difficult however given the nature of the locations it makes sense and should not be a huge imposition. They keep some locations open 24 hours, just not all of them, it sounds like.

In states that limit the hours liquor can be sold, having store hours for a convenience store that sells liquor that follow the hours liquor can be sold is a good idea. Some in CA just installed locks over the cooler doors during the 2 AM to 5 AM period where liquor cannot be sold to restrict access to what is in the cooler.

For many years in some places the inside of the stores will close after a certain time and all business is conducted through a window. This limits what items can be sold and allows the clerk to be safe inside and also allows the clerk to get stocking or production tasks done instead of standing idle watching customers on the sales floor.

[mbz321]

Wawa really pushed into Philly itself hard in the last decade after avoiding it for so long (several locations were shuttered in the early-mid 2000's when Wawa's main focus was on gas station growth in the suburbs and eliminating as many 'legacy' locations as they could). The city was on a huge resurgence for a short while, but like other major cities discussed on here, Covid along with other issues have not been too kind to retail in the area. (A fairly new store that opened in DC was shuttered a month ago or so too with many more years remaining on the lease).

[buckguy]

Wawa opened two other stores after the one in Columbia Heights (the one that closed) and those are still open. The Columbia Heights location used to be a locally owned pizza place that was a draw into the area and fairly popular Five Guys. It was behind a Metro station entrance and the entrance isn't obvious from the Metro and competes with a 7-11 that's a block away and numerous fast food places that are nearby. It never did much business when I was there. The Wawa near me is highly visible on a major traffic circle and close to half a dozen hotels, condo/apt buildings and quite a few offices and it seems to do ok despite having a 7-11 nearby and many take out places (but not a lot of chain fast food)---the tourist trade has come back and the conference trade (important to some of the hotels) has followed, so there is plenty of foot traffic. The original DC store on 19th & L St is still open and seems to do ok even though there's much less foot traffic in that area than in the past.

BTW, Philly has been on a roll since the about the mid-90s, so not exactly a short time.

[mbz321]

BTW, Philly has been on a roll since the about the mid-90s, so not exactly a short time.

Looking solely at population charts, the later 90's is when it really started to pick up, and it really exploded in the last decade or so when many areas that were once run-down started to become gentrified, which brought some higher-end retail into areas like Center City. Wawa specifically still tended to avoid Philly itself (besides the areas immediately bordering the suburbs of Bucks and Montgomery Counties) until the last 10 years or so, but several fairly new locations have crashed and burned due to a decrease in traffic from office workers and an increase in panhandling/thefts/robberies and other violence.

[Alpha8472]

Wawa is closing 2 stores in Center City citing safety concerns.

https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelp ... 21013.html

[storewanderer]

They are also talking about potentially halting expansion in that city.

They should just sell their stores to 7-Eleven in that city.