7-Eleven

[Michelle C]

I am sitting here wondering why anyone would be hoping against hope that the 7-11 stores would return to Houston? We have one here in Smithville where I now live and there is nothing special about it. Their prices are high and the only time I visit it is to get a single item that I do not want to make a trip to the grocery store for. I could do that at any C store. If you have seen one C store, you have seen them all.

[FilioScotia]

You're right Michelle. Convenience stores are ALL alike. Same layout and same inventory of short shelf-life basic necessities. Only difference is the name. I'm also baffled that anyone would want more of them - especially more 7-11's.

 

They all charge ultra high prices for everything. It's the price we pay for their "convenience."  Personally I can't stand them, but there are times when I have to go to one near my home in east Texas because it's after hours or very early in the morning and my supermarket isn't open. I think that's one of the definitions of "necessary evil." Oh well.

[FilioScotia]

deleted

[technoevil]

Looks like they are beginning to turn Tetco stores into 7-11's.  I bought gas at one a few days ago and the credit card receipt said 7-11.  

[sabasushi]

I agree that convenience stores are basically the same.  I'm more likely to go to a drugstore these days, since some are open 24 hours and have better selection of various stuff. :-)  But I do feel nostalgic for 7-11 stores and Qwik Trip stores (in Tulsa, OK), since I'd go to one of them when I was a kid to buy comicbooks and Slurpees. :-)

 

[Earlydays]

Walgreens and CVS have become the new "convenience" stores.....

[Bellaire]

Want something to drink?  Convenience store is the cheapest place to buy a fountain drink.  No contest.  A lot cheaper.  Most convenience stores are also cheap on milk and bread.  Want a slurpee?  Can't get one at a grocery store or a drug store.  Can't get fountain drinks there, either.  

 

All drug stores are the same.  All grocery stores are the same.  

 

Need a quick lunch and don't want to eat 2500 calories?  Most convenience stores have fresh made sandwiches.  I know for a fact that 7-Eleven has fresh sandwiches delivered to their stores every day.  

 

They must be doing something right.  The number of convenience stores is increasing throughout the nation and the number of grocery stores and drug stores is declining.  

[Earlydays]

..........The number of convenience stores is increasing throughout the nation and the number of grocery stores and drug stores is declining.  

 

Not sure where you live, but here in Dallas/Fort Worth new drug stores and grocery stores continue to be built....along with new convenience store/gas stations.

 

[TheGreenMeanie]

   I suppose the original poster is long gone...  But I went to Houston Sterling.  Before the OP was born.

 

   I remember that 7-Eleven sold to Stop-N-Go...  Maybe even that they "traded" areas.

 

Was on a mini-haitus, actually. Glad to see this thread grew somewhat!

 

And when did you attend?

[IronTiger]

All drug stores are the same. All grocery stores are the same.

Now, I'm not going to debate the subtle differentiations between CVS and Walgreens, but Fiesta is no Central Market.

The number of convenience stores is increasing throughout the nation and the number of grocery stores and drug stores is declining.

Uh--no. The convenience store rate is probably going faster than the grocery store rate, but it's probably always been that way.

[SpaceGhost]

Now, I'm not going to debate the subtle differentiations between CVS and Walgreens, but Fiesta is no Central Market.

 

I got your back on this 100%.  The best analogy I can give is to compare retail to cars. Most people look at a car and can tell oh this is a Ford pickup, or Toyota Sedan etc, but for the most part people think of cars as all being pretty much the same. If you where to tell this to a car geek they would immediately go on a tirade about how their are multiple different types of cars, different heritage involved in the brands, some cars that where literally carbon copies of others just with badge changed.

 

The same can also be said about retail. Most people just see a store and think "Oh that's just a regular Walmart not a super center, I probably can't do all my grocery shopping there." However if you show a retail geek a store we can dissect the history of the store, what else it has been, and just about everything else in between.

[IronTiger]

I got your back on this 100%.  The best analogy I can give is to compare retail to cars. Most people look at a car and can tell oh this is a Ford pickup, or Toyota Sedan etc, but for the most part people think of cars as all being pretty much the same. If you where to tell this to a car geek they would immediately go on a tirade about how their are multiple different types of cars, different heritage involved in the brands, some cars that where literally carbon copies of others just with badge changed.

 

The same can also be said about retail. Most people just see a store and think "Oh that's just a regular Walmart not a super center, I probably can't do all my grocery shopping there." However if you show a retail geek a store we can dissect the history of the store, what else it has been, and just about everything else in between.

When I was working at Village Foods (AppleTree until 2008, and yes, it was the next to last AppleTree ever, and yes, it maintains most of the original neon Safeway décor) I was shocked I had to explain to a co-worker the major differences between Walmart and H-E-B (our two main competitors)--and it takes a super-geek to go the extra mile and figure out what stores used to be what.

[IronTiger]

The local TETCO installed a real Slurpee machine, meaning that they are still intending on converting them completely. Last time I recall, there was still a Speedy Stop at TX 6 and 290. Is that still a SS, or did that convert to TETCO?

[IronTiger]

The Speedy Stop at 6 and 290 (actually FM 1960) is still Speedy Stop.

On a related note, were the Valero "Super K" stores ever 7 Elevens?

[scarface]

So I'm guessing this is no longer happening?

[IronTiger]

I don't know. The Speedy Stop at 6 and 290 may be remaining a SS since 7 Eleven didn't buy everything. The TETCO stores in BCS do have Slurpee machines though

[JFive]

Just stopped by the Tetco/Chevron on 249. They have Slurpees, Big Gulp, 7-Eleven hot dogs, coffee. etc. It's in the middle of being re-branded according to the clerk, but for all intents and purposes this is a 7-Eleven. 

[scarface]

Well thanks for the update JFive. Although someone interested really had to do some research based off the information you gave. LOL. Just messin with ya.

 

For anyone wanting to know the exact location and address and phone number:

 

18555 State Highway 249 Houston TX 77070

(281) 477-7561

 

Let's hope 7eleven doesn't change their mind on this one the same way they did about the Alvin and Sugarland locations.

[IronTiger]

Change their mind? Currently, the CS location, being a Tetco for the last 2 years or so, is supposed to convert to a full 7 Eleven weather permitting by September.

[MirrersTrucking]

I honestly can't understand why anyone would want a 7 11, sometimes it's a good thing when certain things don't exist in certain areas.

[Gurgis]

I've had a deja vu since moving to Colorado. There are several 7-Elevens alive and kicking within a few miles of where I live. 

 

As far as being special though, I have to laugh. I went inside them occasionally as a teenager (35 years ago), but can't imagine going in them now for anything.

[Bill Lins]

were the Valero "Super K" stores ever 7 Elevens?

IIRC, the Super "K" stores were formerly UTotEm stores, just rebranded.

[IronTiger]

IIRC, the Super "K" stores were formerly UTotEm stores, just rebranded.

UtoteM became Circle K, not Super K.

[SpaceGhost]

UtoteM became Circle K, not Super K.

 

Although when Circle K pulled out many stores rebranded to a generic K name.

Interesting side note, I found a Super K that recently put a Circle K sign back up.

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/65529057@N05/22137020098/

[IronTiger]

On 10/25/2015 at 1:23 AM, SpaceGhost said:

 

Although when Circle K pulled out many stores rebranded to a generic K name.

Interesting side note, I found a Super K that recently put a Circle K sign back up.

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/65529057@N05/22137020098/

Probably old stock...

 

News is that that the Corner Store brand will be acquired and assimilated by Circle K, which is weird because weren't some of those stores Circle K to begin with?

[Tumbleweed_Tx]

Corner Store was all Stop N Go, post 7-11 merge, pre-Shamrock, which rebranded them Valero, then Corner Store.

 

I think.

[IronTiger]

1 hour ago, Tumbleweed_Tx said:

Corner Store was all Stop N Go, post 7-11 merge, pre-Shamrock, which rebranded them Valero, then Corner Store.

 

I think.

What happened to the Circle K stores? I know they pulled out in 1994 but did any become Stop N Go?

 

By the way, speaking of Circle K, one opened at Will Clayton and Wilson in 2015. It appears to be the only one currently in Houston.

[SpaceGhost]

2 hours ago, IronTiger said:

What happened to the Circle K stores? I know they pulled out in 1994 but did any become Stop N Go?

 

By the way, speaking of Circle K, one opened at Will Clayton and Wilson in 2015. It appears to be the only one currently in Houston.

 

So here's what I understand it as. Circle K came to town in 1984 when they bought U-ToteM. They purchased 250 stores, all located in Houston. They then began to expand into the suburbs, until the company as a whole entered financial issues. This was during the recession of the early 90's. Circle K trimmed down to only 68 Houston stores by 1994. Most of the "knock-off" brands such as Super-K, and small chains like Hollywood Food Stores were carved out of the stores dumped during the early 90's. When Circle K made the decision to pull out of Houston all together they sold all remaining 68 Houston stores to Stop-N-Go. Some examples of former stores are 7100 Bellaire Blvd and 5802 Memorial Drive. These stores went through the "Stop-N-Go Progession" that I'll get to in a moment. An interesting note to add to Circle K's departure is that it was timed right after a lawsuit was filed against the company accusing them of firing multiple managers in Houston purely on the basis that they were Vietnamese this made have had something to do with the decision to leave.

 

So moving on, I'm not too sure on how/when 7-Eleven came to Houston although I'm aware of how they left. They were bought out by a company called National Convenience Stores which owned and operated Stop-N-Go they were originally founded in San Antonio in the 1950's but moved to Houston in the 60's. They already operated around 300 Houston Stop-N-Go locations by 1987, and agreed to purchase all 270 Houston 7-Eleven stores. There were very few closings initially, but they did eventually come with the passage of time and the recession of the early 90's. Again most of these locations that were lost became either independent, or were bought by smaller chains. Eventually in 1995 National Convenience Stores was bought out by Diamond Shamrock. They had no intentions to mess with the brand which was at that point about 400 stores strong, just in the Houston area. Diamond Shamrock would eventually rebrand as Valero, and eventually rebranded the Stop-N-Go locations as "Corner Store" locations. Corner Store's operations expanded further than Stop-N-Go ever did, and in 2013 they were spun off as their own company once again, which Circle K has just purchased.

 

One last interesting tid-bit I found while researching was that the reason we have/had so many convenience stores in strip malls was that developers who were building during and right before the oil market fell out in the 80's gave free rent to convenience stores to help drive traffic to their strip centers!
 

Quote

A couple of years ago, he said, convenience stores were added to service stations and developers with empty strip centers put convenience stores into vacant space. In 18 months, 200 new stores came into the market, Van Horn said. But he said the service stations made a big mistake by building such small stores because the product mix is limited. The developers gave free rent to the operators in their strip centers, and once the reality of adding rent to costs is felt, those stores are likely to disappear, he predicted.

 

 

[IronTiger]

To add to that, according to my newly-restored access to the Chron archives, in 1986, Circle K bought a number of NCS stores, but not the whole company. It does not say if any were converted in Houston, likely not due NCS being located in Houston and avoiding any antitrust issues. This would be the first of many times the two crossed paths. The same year, Circle K also started doing video rentals (a poster advertising such a service can be seen in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.

 

Quote

 

PHOENIX, Ariz. - The Circle K Corp. has completed a $41.3 million purchase of 187 convenience stores from National Convenience Stores Inc., the Phoenix-based firm announced Monday.

The agreement also included buildings, store and gasoline equipment and real estate, Circle K said in a release.

The Houston-based NCS property included 46 Shop 'n Go stores in Phoenix and Denver; eight Hot Stop stores in Oklahoma City; and 133 Stop 'n Go stores in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee.

NCS will continue to operate 920 stores in six states, the release stated. Circle K has 3,350 stores in 25 states.

The proposed sale was announced in February.

 

Also of note is a real estate brief of Circle K buying land for building a new store at the corner of Sommerall and FM 529, which is now a Valero Corner Store, which means that Circle K will return to that space.

 

The reason NCS was having problems was mostly the recession. A 1987 article mentioned that "[NCS]'s primary customers have always been young, blue-collar males," but surprisingly, in 1987, they purchased all 270 7-Eleven stores in Houston, putting the company in first place in convenience stores. (As an aside, the 7-Eleven stores in College Station-Bryan continued on for a few more years before being sold to E-Z Mart sometime in the very early 1990s, but by 1988 new construction on 7-Eleven stores had pretty much ground to a halt, while NCS purchased most of the San Antonio stores in 1988 as well).

 

When 1990 rolled around, NCS was trying to go upscale...

 

Quote

 

"It's a real tough time for everyone in the industry," said Roger Propst, a stock analyst for Lovett Underwood Neuhaus & Webb. "They are going to have to reinvent the stores." Such a transformation has already taken place at the Stop N Go at 9299 Richmond Ave. (Ed. Note: Amazingly, it looks like the Valero there is now legally Stop N Go as of 2016, despite the sign saying "Richmond Market")

The place looks more like a small grocery market than a snack shop. In one aisle, a young woman picks through a bin of bagels. In another, a man eyes the bakery case, giving particular attention to a freshly made chocolate cheesecake.

The store offers fruit, loaves of french bread and a wide assortment of other foods. One display immodestly sports a bottle of champagne.

Stop N Go also is rolling out a strategy of matching stores to their surrounding neighborhoods. Stores in upscale areas will have pasta and gourmet coffee beans. Stores in Hispanic neighborhoods will carry tortillas and Mexican breads. Stores in black neighborhoods will carry magazines and cosmetics catering to those customers.

Stop N Go is revamping the stores at a rate of 100 every six months. NCS owns more than 1,000 stores. The changes are expected to be completed in 18 months.

In addition to the neighborhood approach, every Stop N Go will place more emphasis on healthy food, Van Horn said. High-quality microwave dinners, bottled water and fresh produce will be stocked in all stores.

 

...but Circle K was filing for bankruptcy, despite being second place with 141 stores in Houston (down from a peak of 250 in the mid-1980s). Circle K had been under fire, with a lawsuit still hanging over them from unjust firing of Asian employees and an unpopular policy of removing healthcare involving "personal lifestyle choices" (health problems from AIDS, alcohol, drugs, etc.)

 

In August 1990, Circle K began to close stores.

 

Quote

 

Struggling under the weight of Chapter 11 reorganization, Circle K Corp. is closing 201 of its weakest stores, including 16 in the Houston area.

"These are stores that are not meeting performance standards," Senior Vice President Ray Cox said. Circle K will close 43 stores in Texas. Ten of those stores are in Houston and six are in neighboring areas - including one in West University Place, one in Missouri City, one in Spring, one in Seguin and two in Huntsville.

 

It would only get worse for Circle K, and in 1991, Circle K announced it would get rid of 1,500 stores out of 3,700 outlets...comprising 40% of its outlets. While Dallas, Waco, and San Antonio would no longer have a Circle K, Houston kept their Circle K stores. Meanwhile, NCS was struggling under the weight of 7-Eleven and filed Chapter 11 in December 1991. Reports of a few closed stores came in, though officially NCS didn't close any.

 

In 1992, Circle K was bought by investors under the name "CK Acquisitions", predominantly owned by Investcorp, which owned Saks Fifth Avenue and other luxury brands at the time, and NCS exited bankruptcy protection. In February 1994, Circle K and NCS agreed to a store swap where Circle K bought some NCS stores in the West Coast and Circle K sold their stores to NCS. Now former Circle K and 7-Eleven stores were under one banner. But by that time that happened, Circle K stores had numbered to only 68 in Houston. The Chron mentioned that Circle K "still will have 272 stores in Texas, principally in San Angelo, McAllen, El Paso, San Antonio, Austin and Laredo." (which is weird since another article says they pulled out of San Antonio in 1991).

 

With the economic upturn, both chains were doing okay in the mid-1990s, and in 1995, Circle K made a $200M for NCS, which NCS turned down but Circle K kept on. The same year, NCS introduced a new logo for Stop N Go (now just "S n G"). With Circle K not letting go, NCS was forced to look for other suitors. In November 1995, they accepted a purchase by San Antonio-based Diamond Shamrock (I believe this rebranded a lot of Citgo stores, which 7-Eleven had paired with, since they owned 50% of the company at one time). Meanwhile, Circle K was bought by Tosco, lost a discrimination lawsuit that involved firing more Vietnamese workers in 1992, and would go on to do other things, just not in Houston. Tosco was sold to Philips Petroleum in 2001, and that became ConocoPhilips in 2002, with Circle K being sold to Canadian-based Alimentation Couche-Tard soon after.

As an aside, I'm guessing that the "Knockoff K" stores originated in the early 1990s when Circle K was shedding stores but before they sold to NCS.

 

So with Circle K now officially out of the picture for now, in 1996, Diamond Shamrock (which became Ultramar Diamond Shamrock due to a merger that year) was operating Stop N Go and their own Corner Store brand, which had been in Houston at least since 1992. In 2001, Ultramar Diamond Shamrock was purchased by Valero Energy Corporation, which announced in 2005 it would phase out the Diamond Shamrock name. I'm not sure when the Stop N Go name was taken off stores in favor of Corner Store (which Valero kept). In May 2013, Valero spun off Corner Store as "CST Brands", which must have had some sort of contract with Valero since that's what most Valero stores were paired with and I've only seen one Corner Store that wasn't with a Valero (a Shell in Georgetown, TX). In August 2016, Alimentation Couche-Tard announced it would purchase CST Brands and rebrand the stores as Circle K, which means that ultimately Circle K did win out against NCS and its successors, and WILL take some legacy ex-Circle K stores back.

 

Go figure, eh?

[IronTiger]

Well, looks like 7-Eleven has a second chance here after all as well as College Station and Central Texas (they bought out Sac-n-Pac a few years ago) after all. Weirdly, I've actually thought about this exact type of merger before but never actually imagined it to come to pass.

 

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/retail/2017/04/06/7-eleven-buys-1110-stores-sunoco-33-billion-deal