I remember on a business trip stopping by a 7-Eleven after driving for several hours and hearing classical music playing from the speakers outside. I heard they did this to discourage the kids from hanging out there, though it amuses me that classical music is so offensive to them that it would work.
Circle K is owned by the aforementioned Canadian company (Alimentation Couche-Tard) that’s trying to take over 7-11.
Holy Roller Dogs, Batman! (fist into palm)
Talk about industry consolidation and monopoly rents!
The nearest 7-Eleven to me became a 7-Eleven about 30 years ago when 7-Eleven bought a beloved small local chain of convenience/gas stores.
The next nearest 7-Eleven became one when 7-Eleven bought a larger beloved local convenience/gas chain about nine years ago. That beloved chain had acquired two of its major local competitors 13 and 16 years earlier.
i guess I’m an outlier here. I have no good feelings about 7-Eleven (although I do recall buying some albums there in the mid-1970s. That now seems very weird). Anyway, I haven’t been in one in decades and fully expect that I shall not set foot in another for the remainder of my life. I recall they were a bit dingy, a bit overpriced, and became obsolete when other stores expanded their hours.
That’s true; I was born in 1966 and I remember sometime in the 1970s, my parents visiting one on a Sunday or a holiday just to buy milk. This was in the days of Connecticut blue laws, when almost everything was closed on Sundays and holidays.
Aside from that I rarely visit one.
They have the cheapest gas around here and if I need to buy a pint of milk or a bag of ice, it’s worth it to just go in there instead of driving and parking at the grocery store.
Ice at the grocery store is more expensive and a pint of milk (same locally popular brand) is $0.50 cheaper.
The 7-Eleven has had power (presumably from a generator) and operating during many of the power outages we have had and no other gas stations for miles around were open.
My post probably came across as more critical of 7-Eleven than I intended. Especially since I haven’t been in one for such a long time. I don’t have any animosity toward the chain, they’re just not something I personally have a need for (I don’t buy gas anymore, for example. Also, I’m not even sure the ones around here have gas pumps.)
Here in Sacramento, the majority that I can think of off the top of my head do not, but I’m nearly certain I’ve seen a few that did.
7-11 food is pretty good, for what it is. I prefer to stop at ARCO and grab something from AM/PM. They have some legit road food.
I had a couple of collectible Slurpee cups that I’d gotten at the 7-Eleven near our house in suburban Chicago, in '73 or '74. One was from a series of baseball players (Rod Carew); the other was from a series on endangered animals (the black-footed ferret). (Photos below are the actual designs, but not my cups.)
I note, on that poster you shared, the instructions: “Hand wash only - keep out of dishwasher.” The cups were fairly thin plastic, and the ink on them faded with heat, in a somewhat alarming fashion: the browns turned into greens. As my mother had no idea that they were “hand wash only” (and probably wouldn’t have cared anyway), they went through the dishwasher repeatedly, making Rod Carew’s skin, and the black-footed ferret’s fur, a strange shade of green.
It feels like sometime in the last several years Wawa stole all of 7-11’s thunder, at least here in NJ. I have never been in a Wawa but they are super popular.
I have a friend who lives in suburban Philadelphia, and he and his family are Wawa fanatics – to the point that his six-year-old daughter regularly draws the Wawa logo. 
I will never forget when Kum & Go opened stores in Little Rock.
I thought it had to be a joke. Wikipedia says they have 400 stores in 13 states.
Founded in 1959 as Hampton Oil Company in Hampton, Iowa. They adopted the current name in 1975.
7-Eleven was owned by the Southland Corporation and started in Dallas. Southland named their stores 7-Eleven in 1946. That was their operating hours.
When I went to Chicago this spring, the 7-Eleven across the street from Manny’s Deli was doing exactly that, and there was nobody outside. In contrast, the 7-Eleven I passed by in the Loop, which was not playing music, had about fifteen teenagers loitering on the corner out front.
It seems odd to me that classical music is such a turn-off for them, and yet, had the store been playing the typical music of the kids today, I would be turned off.
I had a few while there a couple weeks ago. And it’s not just egg salad…there are many varieties.
Yep, we used one at a 7-Eleven.
One thing 7-Eleven failed at was their coffee machines. Family Mart coffee machines were the best. Basically two weeks of mornings trying out the machines, minus a few days we were in the Japanese Alps. If I were to start a travel blog, it would be about c-stores in Japan. They are busy and way better that what we have in the US.
I’m kinda surprised 7-Eleven has a foothold in Chicago at all when it seems like there’s a Walgreens every 500 feet.
A whole lot of the Walgreens (and CVSes) in the Loop have closed in the last couple of years. As I noted upthread, both of those drug store chains – as well as 7-Eleven – had likely oversaturated the market in the downtown area, and when foot traffic dropped with COVID, and never really came back up to where it once was, they started closing locations.
Also, a lot of the Chicago-area 7-Eleven locations were originally White Hen Pantries, and they may well have pre-dated the Walgreens/CVS building frenzy.
Pretty much the only thing I buy in convenience markets is a pair of bottled waters for $2 or 3 or 4 depending on how big. And Powerball tickets. And once in a great while for misguided nostalgias’ sake a pair of the spicy Johnsonville brats if they have them. Urrp!! Which they mostly don’t have, thank goodness. Around here they (7-11s) rarely have gasoline and I’d be real leery of its quality anyhow from past experience.
As I mentioned above, here in SoFL 7-11 is King. WaWa, Cumberland Farms, and to a lesser extent Daily’s is trying to make inroads. They all have gasoline, but they’re all new facilities on larger lots. Lots of 7-11s are ancient in small spaces with no rooms for pumps.
Plus of course the various gasoline-company branded stations with their company branded convenience stores (Mobil-Mart, etc.).