Circle K acquiring Holiday Station Stores

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Re: Circle K acquiring Holiday Station Stores

Post by wnetmacman »

pseudo3d wrote:From existing evidence, Diamond Shamrock did the initial start of Corner Store becoming its own brand, where they had a new pentagon-shaped (similar but not identical to Albertsons Express signage) red "Corner Store" signage (without the DS logo on the sign), and under Valero that just became the first Valero Corner Store signage, with the Valero "V" with "cornerstore" written below it.
The Corner Store name has existed since the early 80's, from driving around Texas during that timeframe. Yes, they rebranded it in the very late 90's, but it has been around for quite a while.

I suspect the name will continue for a while longer, as will Holiday, because Couche-Tard doesn't seem to be in a big hurry to rebrand, seeing as they are still running stores under Kangaroo, which finalized some time back.

Moderator Note:Let's try to steer the discussion back to Holiday, as that's the thread. If you want to talk about CST, there is another thread for that. It can be found at this link.
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Re: Circle K acquiring Holiday Station Stores

Post by storewanderer »

Has anyone here had any experience with Holiday?

I see they go all the way to Spokane, WA..

I guess this Holiday is different from the clown Holiday in Utah.
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Re: Circle K acquiring Holiday Station Stores

Post by storewanderer »

I was finally able to check out one of these Holiday Station Stores. I can see this is a very good purchase for Circle K. They already use the same NCR/Radiant POS as Circle K and the same "Rewards" program attached to the gas pumps and cash register as some of the Circle K Regions use.

They also offer all sizes coffee at 99cents and most fountain sizes at 99cents (the 52oz was 1.19). They have a handfull of private label items including water, candy, etc. Many "2 for" pricing schemes throughout the store, even odd ones like canned cat food 3 cans for 3.50 or 1.29 each (or go to Wal Mart where it is 48 cents per can...).

They had quite a bit more food than Circle K. They had store produced donuts in many flavors/shapes, store produced muffins, store produced cookies in at least 6 flavors, the usual hot dogs, some hot pretzels...

Their website is interesting also as it has some coupons you can print, one is for 79 cent Coffee, the other is for .05 off per gallon of gas, must "pay inside." It seems at Holiday, "Pay inside" is post-pay so pump first then go in and pay and redeem your coupon. While I was inside the store I observed at least 4 other customers also doing post pay. Funny to think that practice is largely unheardof in much of the west. I guess it is much different in these upper mountain states.
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Re: Circle K acquiring Holiday Station Stores

Post by storewanderer »

Circle K announced they will be retaining the Holiday banner and programs.

I am not surprised.

I was confident they would make the right decision on this...

The right decision with a lot of Kangaroo Express and portions of CST is a bulldozer. That is going to take A LOT of money. Wasting money on something that is not broken (Holiday) is not a good idea when so much else they bought needs A LOT of money.
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Re: Circle K acquiring Holiday Station Stores

Post by storewanderer »

Here we are a couple years later. Circle K seems to be remodeling the Holiday Stores. Stores are still branded Holiday. Polar Pop and "Simply Great Coffee" equipment is being installed. Large vials for a few flavors of coffee and a few little neat machines for lower volume flavors that do a grind and brew on demand (very neat little machines). Coffee cups still say "Holiday Coffee." The same coupon on the website for 79cent coffee that was there a couple years ago is still there. Soda cups are Polar Pop and say Circle K (this is the only thing in the store that says Circle K). The rest of the store looks the same as before. Holiday private label products are still present throughout the locations. From a systems perspective they do not appear to be integrated with Circle K.

Gas pumps are still "pump first then pay inside" and easy pay at the pump where you just stick the card in and the pump starts right up if you do that (no zip code or other time wasting questions which is a real positive when it is 15 degrees out), though that is just largely consistent with other stations in the region it seems.

One Holiday I went to, did not have any of the Polar Pop stuff up. It also still had "Holiday Pop" cups. I guess it was a franchise, and the franchise locations are not being moved to the new program. It is a bit curious they are sending cups with Circle K logos to the corporate locations (but only for soda) yet they still produce Holiday Pop cups for franchise locations...
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Re: Circle K acquiring Holiday Station Stores

Post by storewanderer »

Well, rebranding has started..........

https://www.csnews.com/couche-tard-conv ... le-k-brand

Not sure why they picked Sioux Falls of all places.

I can think of various others that would have made more sense but no need to give any ideas.

Circle K has taken some ideas from Holiday so I will give credit where credit is due; they've beefed up their private label program, replicated Holiday's promotional/pricing program, and in some locations rolled out Holiday's bakery program.
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