I come before you today to discuss one of the burning issues of our time.
No, not the 2020 presidential election.
No, not the certification of Luzerne County’s 2022 general election results.
No, not the importance of masks and social distancing.
I’m here to talk about the whole Sheetz vs. Wawa thing.
Sure, you detect a little sarcasm — I’ll come back to that — but anyone who knows anything about Pennsylvania knows this debate cuts jagged fault lines across the entire state and beyond, as the two chains continue their relentless drive to expand within and outside of the commonwealth.
Just last week, for example, Sheetz announced its plans to open in the Detroit area. That’s a long way from its home base in Altoona. Now at least the two cities will have something in common other than horrific local dishes incorrectly called pizza. (Google “Altoona-style pizza” and “Detroit-style pizza” if you don’t believe me. You’ll be sorry.)
I wouldn’t be writing any of this, of course, if last week didn’t also see news of both Wawa and Sheetz staking out new territory in Luzerne County.
We do have good pizza — unlike Altoona and Detroit — and we do have Sheetz stores. Or should that be Sheetzes? Anyway. What we don’t have is a Wawa, not since a small, old-style location with no gas pumps closed a number of years ago in Wilkes-Barre.
Wawa has evolved since then, as anyone who follows the Delaware County-based chain knows. Those little neighborhood convenience stores have been superseded by bright, shiny gas-a-terias with fresh food counters that are similar to, well, Sheetz, with its MTO (Made-To-Order) menu — similar in concept, if not the actual menu items (again, I’ll come back to that).
When Bill O’Boyle broke news that Wawa is looking at a site on Market Street in Kingston, he almost broke the Internet. Or at least the local Internet.
As soon as I posted Bill’s story to the Times Leader website and social media pages, I sat back and waited for my phone to ding, and ding, and ding. The shares and reactions and comments came fast and furious. Most were broadly positive. Some were positively fawning. The news struck a nerve, a pent-up desire, an obvious longing.
There were the expected dissenters, too. Some, quite understandably, chafe at the notion of another corporate chain coming into the area when mom and pops are trying to survive. Others expressed concern about the location and what impact it will have on Market Street traffic. Again, understandable.
Then there are those who waded into the discussion after it was hundreds of comments deep, only to offer a profound “who cares” in the face of a vigorous online debate.
I get a kick out of those. Read the room, people. The point is a lot of readers did care enough to expound on it in a public forum.
When we learned later in the week that Sheetz plans to move ahead with plans for a store on the site of a now-shuttered Citgo gas station at Kidder and Mundy streets in Wilkes-Barre, that story also drew a significant amount of reaction online.
The reaction was somewhat different, however: Not so much a criticism of Sheetz in general, but questions about whether the chain really needs another store in the area when there are locations comparatively close by on Route 315 in Plains Township and Route 309 in Wilkes-Barre Township.
Clearly Sheetz believes they do. Given their successful expansion across multiple states in the past decade, one suspects they have done their homework on this.
Given our collective appetite for MTO food, snacks, etc. (and you can read “our” to mean Pennsylvania or NEPA), it’s hard to imagine the new store not succeeding. Both of the Sheetz locations I mentioned above are busy day and night; adding another one roughly midway between the two, at a prominent intersection, seems to make sense.
What is perhaps harder to make sense of is the intense loyalty Pennsylvanians feel for these two convenience store chains, but the rivalry is very real, and almost as heated as the whole Eagles-Steelers schism.
Sure, some of that is — as in football — a question of regional identity.
Wawa is an eastern Pa. brand and Sheetz is a central and western Pa. brand. Despite lingering myths to the contrary, however, the chains do overlap in several regions — Lancaster and greater Reading, for example — though generally not at the extremities. The idea of a Sheetz in Center City Philadelphia feels sacrilegious, just as alien as a Wawa would be in Pittsburgh’s Golden Triangle. Heck, in greater Philly they now have a Wawa station on the regional rail system, sponsored by the company as its offices are nearby.
Again, the devotions are a bit regional and cultural. The branding, even the background music, in each case feels subtly different, and perhaps more in keeping with their core regions.
Heck, this *could* have become a big deal in the recent U.S. Senate election, given that John Fetterman touts the merits of Sheetz with all of his Western Pennsylvania soul. I say could have because Mehmet Oz never really seemed to pick up the gauntlet — despite living in Wawa territory (whether that be Pennsylvania or New Jersey). Instead, he tragically nailed his colors to an imaginary supermarket called Wegners and the rest is history.
Then there are those of us who have experience of both chains and who have formed definite opinions based on that — and it almost always seems to come down to the food.
To paint with a broad brush, Sheetz’s offerings are more like fast food, while Wawa’s are closer to deli food. There’s definite overlap, but that’s my basic observation. I do like both. Depends on my mood.
Back to this column, and the sarcasm I referenced at the beginning.
We wrote a story about Wawa, and it did well.
We wrote a story about Sheetz, and it did well.
We wrote post asking readers to tell us which they preferred. It drew a lot of commentary.
If there’s one thing readers everywhere should notice in the brave new world of digital media, it’s that everyone is chasing that next viral story.
Our Wawa story certainly hit that mark, at least in local media terms, so less than a week later it was suggested we write a fourth piece on the overall subject, since it seemed to be a hot topic.
I was pretty easily talked into this, since I am known to be a Wawa aficionado, though I admit I rolled my eyes a little because, yeah, there are many more important things going on.
But it’s Wawa, so I said yes.
Let me be clear: I’m not taking sides here. I actually like Sheetz a great deal. When I lived in the Harrisburg area and was writing a book, I did much of the work late at night, equipped with coffee and MTO food and free WiFi in Sheetz dining rooms around Dauphin County. Those were fun times.
Wawa, on the other hand, evokes other fun times: To me it’s “a Philly thing,” the place you stop headed into or out of the city. The Norristown-area store is a must-visit before hopping onto a train into town or before hitting the Turnpike to come home.
I’ll also admit a weakness for the pretzels, for the seasonal Gobbler turkey sandwiches and bowls, and for the hot Sizzli breakfast sandwiches.
Until Wawa builds in Luzerne County, the nearest stores to Wilkes-Barre are in the Poconos, and just down the Turnpike near the I-80/Route 940 interchange in Carbon County.
Those of us who work late at night typically have fewer dining and shopping choices than those who work more genial hours, and the pandemic only exacerbated that.
During the spring of 2020, as we were moving toward expanded freedom of movement but still encouraged to exercise caution, restlessness and missing my Philly trips prompted me to make the trek to the Poconos or one stop down the Turnpike in search of Wawa food and a little reminder of the normalcy we were all craving.
It became kind of a joke. My late night social media posts from distant Wawas were the subject of much laughter, and maybe also some commiseration.
The trips continued intermittently even after life began to resume a more normal pace. More than one friend was intrigued enough by these excursions to ask about joining me.
If I have one criticism of Wawa it is this: Unlike Sheetz, its stores generally lack indoor seating. The one in Blakeslee does have tables and chairs, however.
Did I sit there with a friend until 3 a.m. one summer night solving the great debates of our time?
Something like that, as customers swirled around us in all directions, regardless of the hour.
Having a Wawa closer to home will be nice. It won’t have the mystique of a late-night road trip. And I won’t be abandoning Sheetz.
But these are more than gas stations. For better or worse they’re a quirky and beloved part of our culture.
Some of us just love them a little more than others.
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Roger DuPuis is News Editor of the Times Leader. He thinks you should try Wawa’s Gobbler bowl with sweet potatoes.