Wawa is doubling down on its status as a convenience store, allowing customers to avoid the store completely, writes Christian Hetrick for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Customers can order on their phone, have coffee brought to their cars, use a drive-thru, get hoagie home delivery, and if you have to go inside, use a self-checkout kiosk.

The effort toward convenience makes sure Wawa keeps up with shopping trends that were accelerated in the pandemic.

“Go back 20 or 30 years, and Sears was a beloved brand,” Jim Morey, Wawa’s chief brand officer, said, referring to Sears’s bankruptcy status. “They didn’t adapt and change, and that’s going to happen to anybody. So one of our values is being able to embrace change.”

Self-checkout kiosks showed up during the pandemic and got customers through the store faster and more socially distanced.

The machines are now in more than 60 stores.

Morey says workers are still needed, especially since the food preparation end is a growing part of Wawa’s operations.

“We need more labor than ever,” Morey said. “And we’re always going to have somebody that’s going to be there to check out our customers.”

Read more about Wawa in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

From the Wawa test kitchen, here’s Farley Kaiser, Wawa’s corporate chef, explaining Wawa food to an out-of-state news team.