DENVER -- The architecture of convenience puts the doughnuts first. Stripped down and lit up, it speaks a simple truth at 7-Eleven: Without the Slurpee, there could be no slurper.
Settled mostly into existing structures, the 24 new franchises that have popped up in the state in the past two years put the emphasis on product, according to a report in the Denver Post. Aesthetically they aren't much to look at, but theoretically, they are as pure as design gets. Driven overwhelmingly by function, they have few details to distract from the company's trademark grab-and-go [image-nocss] goals.
Location by booming location, the company has built a signature look--clean and bland, cold yet familiar--around its hyper-efficient and highly desirable ability to serve things in a hurry, the report states.
There is a stunning sameness about them, yet the small entrepreneurs who helm each outlet manage to sneak in a bit of personality all their own.
With the economy in endless hurt, the architecture of the fledgling millennium isn't being defined by investment-heavy skyscrapers or indulgent McMansions. Instead, it mirrors the chain stores and the fast-casual restaurants that have taken off while others tanked. The look of the recessed economy is expressed in colors: the pastels of Pinkberry, Chipotle burgundy, PetSmart blue, Subway sandwich yellow.
And 269 times in Colorado, the orange, green and red stripes of 7-Eleven. One just opened at East Colfax Avenue and Race Street. Another moved in four blocks east at Colfax and Josephine. That's six blocks from an existing shop at Steele, which is eight blocks from another at Colorado Boulevard. The new 7-Eleven at 18th and Lawrence streets is five blocks from the new one on the 16th Street Mall, that's four blocks from another at 17th and Welton streets.
Each one is shiny and unavoidable.
The common look: white, white interior walls and tiled floors; bright lights, sometimes nothing more than rows of glowing fluorescent tubes mounted to the ceiling; shoulder-high shelving that practically disappears behind bags of pretzels and beef jerky; wall-long glass refrigerators with an LED glow.
There is little signage. Instead, it is brand names--Pepsi, Doritos, Trojan--that guide customers around the room. Click here to read more of this report.
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