Dive Brief:
- Wawa is expected to close two convenience stores in Philadelphia later this month, according to Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification filings recently submitted to Pennsylvania’s Department of Labor and Industry.
- The stores are about 2 miles apart in the northeast corner of Philadelphia, with one on Castor Avenue and the other on Frankford Avenue, according to the notice. The Frankford Avenue store is set to close on April 22, and the Castor Avenue location will shutter on April 24.
- Wawa is currently in the midst of bringing its stores to several new states and regions across the U.S. However, in its home base of Philadelphia, the c-store retailer has shuttered numerous stores in recent years for various reasons, notably crime concerns.
Dive Insight:
Wawa’s latest closures mean the retailer will have shuttered at least 11 of its convenience stores in Philadelphia since 2020, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. The c-store retailer has cited multiple reasons for shutting the doors to these stores, ranging from an inability to deliver ideal customer experiences to landlords ending the leases.
Crime also was among those reasons. This climaxed three years ago when Wawa was reportedly considering scraping Philadelphia from its broader expansion plans.
A spokesperson from Wawa did not respond by press time when asked why it’s closing these stores and how many team members will be impacted. The Castor location is open from 5 a.m. to midnight, while the Frankford store closes at 11 p.m. Both locations offer curbside pickup and online ordering for Wawa’s extensive made-to-order food menu and grab-and-go items, according to Wawa’s website.
It’s unclear how many c-stores Wawa has in Philadelphia now. The company’s website has said for the past few years that it has 50 locations in the city, while recent statistics from location intelligence firm Scraperhero says that number is 37.
Wawa’s broader expansion plans include growing the retailer’s current store count from about 1,100 to 1,800 by 2030. The retailer is entering several new states in the process, such as Ohio, Indiana, North Carolina and Kentucky.
