True, if you’re an area served by QuikTrip. They have expanded rapidly in the last decade, but have just 1105 locations in 19 states. And 5 of those states have less than 10 stores.
I don’t think I’ve ever been in a 7-11.
“Day or Night” (curiously not open over-night, here) are the stores I’ve seen.
The conv. store in my little village is “The Pit-stop”
Since the sign is hand painted, I’m sure it’s not a franchise branded place.
Big sign on the door “No restroom-don’t ask”
They do have pizza, dusty sodas (not really cold), bait, lots of smoking things, questionable candy-I’m convinced came from Dollar Tree, an ATM machine with an out-of-order note taped on, a hateful clerk. Hot food, ok I would not even look at, much less eat. And of course beer. Lots and lots of beer. In the Beer cave.
When we were recently there, you could buy Jim Beam for less than you could buy in the US (well, at least what we see it for in Idaho). Not sure how that works…
In Argentina there is a convenience store called “Open 25 Hours”. The one I saw closed at 7pm.
I have memories of stopping at 7-Eleven for candy after working up an appetite spending an afternoon swimming at the YMCA pool as a kid. Then at some point in the late 1980s all the 7-Eleven stores in our region got rebranded as The Pantry seemingly overnight.
Since moving to California I live in a place that has 7-Eleven stores again, but I don’t think I’ve really shopped at one recently. Nothing against 7-Eleven, it’s just that I rarely shop at convenience stores.
Reminds me of a Steven Wright joke:
“I went to a 7-Eleven, and the guy was locking the front door. I pointed at the sign on the door: ‘It says you’re open 24 hours.’ The guy said, ‘Not in a row.’”
7-11 bought the Speedway chain of ~3,800 gas stations/convenience stores in 2021. Given the sheer number of branded 7-11s and the additional host of Speedways this feels more like a minor adjustment to the market not a sign of impending doom.
Two 7-11s have recently opened near my apartment here in Beijing. Each of the shops is approximately one mile from my apartment. If the companies on the decline, they’ve an odd way of manifesting it.
Walgreens is cutting more stores that 7-Eleven:
These announcements make me nervous. We only one Walgreens in my small town. All my prescriptions are filed there.
I’d have to drive 8 miles to the next town that has a Walgreens.
Small towns are too economically inefficient to continue to exist much longer. Soon rural counties will have a county seat and a bunch of vacant or farmed land and that’s it. Hell, some counties won’t even have a seat anymore as counties have to merge together as the population there shrinks to zero.
Hell, Walgreen’s and CVS could make their closure quota in Las Vegas alone. There’s one every 100’ it seems like.
Today I learned that Speedway is wholly owned by 7-Eleven. This thread made me curious, so I went to the 7-Eleven website and did the “stores near me” thing. There are no 7-Elevens anywhere near me, but a bunch of Speedway locations showed up.
I feel a sense of loss way out of proportion. It’s like the world is going backwards.
Convenience stores were supposed to be everywhere. It’s in the name! The Future was supposed to be a bright shiny one of shopping ease. 24 hr stores! Everything available!
Of course, it probably doesn’t help that I haven’t been in a 7-11 in 30 years. but, still! 
But in many parts of the country, supermarkets are open 24 hours a day, as are some drugstores. So convenience stores aren’t as critical.
Life without convenience stores would be miserable.
The grocery stores are so big. Milk is always on the back wall. Bread on a side wall. Soda in the middle. Groceries deliberately force shoppers to walk all around the store. Hoping for impulse buying.
I never buy small stuff at a grocery store unless I’m in there anyway buying my main groceries.
Around here, supermarkets were never 24 hours except for the Wal*Mart Supercenter, which used to be 24 hours but stopped 10 or so years ago. The local CVS also used to be 24 hours but stopped 5 or so years ago. I actually needed to go to that one in the middle of the night when I suddenly got a fever and only had aspirin rather than ibuprofen. If that happened to me again, I’d have to go to the 24 hour 7/11.
In my area, the tenth larges metro area in the country, all supermarkets used to be 24 hours. We have more people now, by a lot, but they now all close at 10. It just seems backwards, like a regression. In 1980, the stores used to close at 5, so I guess we’re still ahead of the past. For now…
Sounds like a good way to get your steps in every day. I’d drive an extra 5 miles to get milk at Safeway rather than 7-Eleven. But I get that other people are not me.
Or indistinguishable from how things are now. It just depends how you use them (or not).