America’s Favorite Convenience Store Isn’t Buc-ees

America’s favorite convenience store has been named, and probably not the one you would expect.

Personally, my favorite convenience store is the closest one still open for a munchie run at 3 am with a drinks fridge cold enough to freeze napalm. Unbranded, family-run bodgas are better. If it has plastic chairs and tables outside, it’ll quickly become my new daily hangout.

• But we can’t all be lucky enough to live in a bodega culture where a convenience store is the cornerstone of a city block. Sometimes we have to live in unwalkable, suburban hells, where all we have on offer are copy/paste, personalityless, convenience stores, peddling the same branded shrink-wrapped-turd, state to state.
• At least they’re generic enough to be ranked nationally.

But what makes for the best convenience store in America? It’s a collection of things, and most of them aren’t what I would even consider an element. The study, done by the American Customer Satisfaction Index, asked questions about app usage, rewards programs, and fuel-to-snack sales.

What about whether you know the clerk’s kids’ names, or if they remember your brand of cigarettes? What about if they have a supply of that weird Peruvian liquor and clean ice cubes?

And The Survey Says

According to the survey, America’s favorite convenience store isn’t Wawa anymore; it’s Kwik Trip. They have overthrown the previous king, outstripping them by a total of 2 points. It’s a fall from grace for Wawa, who has held the title for quite some time.

• Buc-ees, which is many people’s hyperfixation, comes solidly fourth. Apparently, eating overstuffed meat sandwiches with the smell of gasoline in your nose isn’t the idyllic food experience people think it is.

On the whole, according to the survey, the actual convenience store experience between each of the generic locations is pretty much the same. The only things that really pushed one ahead of the other are app usage and loyalty rewards. It’s the push to digital convenience in the convenience store world that’s separating one indistinguishable, fluorescently lit, slave wage-paying, snack seller from the next.

Find your local family-run corner store. Explore their weird and wonderful shelves. Buy a soda you’ve never seen before. Become a regular. Then tell me your favorite convenience store is another generic American superbrand manned by some underpaid stoned student.