A WAWA PLOT TWIST

A remodeled location will be testing a fully digital store that boasts no shelves.

A Wawa location on the Drexel University campus in Philadelphia is reopening after a recent remodel with a plot twist: no shelves. The location will now only accept mobile and kiosk ordering.

Customers will be able to order from Wawa’s regular foodservice offerings as well as request items from store inventory, which an employee will retrieve from the back. The store prototype debuts at a time when Wawa is experimenting with different store layouts like drive-thru only restaurants, permanently adding pizza to the menu and expanding with more locations. Wawa is working toward doubling its store count by 2030. According to John Paul Titlow of the Philly Voice, “With over 1,000 stores and 40,000 employees, Wawa is the largest private company in Pennsylvania and currently ranks 24th among Forbes’ list of the largest private companies in the country.”

Emma Dooling with the Philadelphia Business Journal wrote about the Drexel location’s history, “When the Wawa opened in September 2018, Drexel said the 8,760-square-foot location was Wawa’s ‘newest and largest urban design prototype in Philadelphia,’ with both indoor and outdoor seating, third-party delivery and mobile ordering through the Wawa app. Wawa CEO Chris Gheysens told the Business Journal last year that the Drexel location was the highest foodservice store in the entire chain pre-pandemic.”

A reddit review speculated “customer convenience” as the reason for the remodel. While there is no official comment from Wawa at this time, the digital store prototype aims to expedite and fulfill the shopper’s experience with the spacious layout and one-step ordering.