OAK BROOK, Ill. -- Tesco and Home Depot are not the only nontraditional retailers threatening the convenience store and gasoline channels. Newcomers MoCo Market and Marvelous Markets are aggressively positioning themselves as c-stores. And Biofuel Oasis is making a move onto gasoline retailing's turf.
On its website, MoCo Market, which opened April 2, claims to be Madison's First Modern Convenience Market. It adds: We welcome Travel-freaks, Techy-geeks, Fashionistas, Music-nerds, Product-snobs, Winos, Microbrew-heads, and most importantly, Food-orgiers ([image-nocss] modern twist on those who love food and dinner parties). Whether you are one or all of these, MoCo Market will serve you modern convenience.
MoCo is a portmanteau word (like Wi-Fi, SoHo, SoCal or Texarkana) for Modern Convenience, a distillation of the retailer's mantra: Modern, Convenience, Community and Connection, reported The Isthmus.
According to the newspaper, with its sleek lines, blond wood and polished metal surfaces, the store is Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) registered and Wisconsin's first member of the Green Restaurant Association, a trade group organized around the concept of creating an ecologically sustainable restaurant industry.
MoCo offers breakfast (bagels, yogurt parfaits, fruit sushi), lunch (soup and salad) and dinner (fresh sushi), available for eating in or taking out, along with a self-serve coffee bar, the report said. It also offers groceries, health and beauty supplies, beer and wine, CDs, periodicals and gadgets, which the paper said will rotate on a monthly basis, with planned themes including bicycles, camping, pets and hipster parents, complete with plans for accompanying promotional posters created by local artists.
MoCo Market also feature an outdoor eating area, free Wi-Fi and a space for dogs, said the report. It even has a MySpace page.
The store is ramping up its advertising, including a commercial, aired during The Daily Show, the paper said. It was created by University of Wisconsin-Madison student and filmmaker Niko Pueringer, and is set to the song Brass Ring by the indie-rock quartet The Broken West. Click here to view the commercial.
Separately, Alexandria, Va.-based Marvelous Market, which describes itself as a mini-Whole Foods [with a] chef-crafted, all-natural food and gourmet convenience store atmosphere, is expanding via franchising in the Washington, D.C., metro area, it said. Ty and Kim Owens will develop two stores; their first Marvelous Market will open by the fall.
The stores offer bottled wine, fresh-baked breads, pastries, desserts, sandwiches and salads; every entr ae is made fresh overnight. For expediency, Marvelous Market products are self-service itemscustomers do not have to wait for food to be cooked, assembled and packaged. Most of the products are pre-wrapped and specifically designed for easy accessibility.
Ty Owens, a certified project manager, will work with his wife to open the stores; however, Kim Owens will manage both stores. She has more than 17 years of experience managing area c-stores, they said.
Marvelous Market currently has eight stores in the area and expects to grow to 50 plus units by 2008. This will be the third franchised location in the metro Washington, D.C., area. The first franchised store opened on Capitol Hill in October 2006 the second is in development in Ballston, Va.
Established in 1990, Marvelous Market began as a neighborhood bread boutique producing and selling traditional European-style specialty breads in Chevy Chase, Md. Today, the company has become a chain and has expanded its product line to include specialty breads, pastries, freshly prepared entrees, sandwiches, salads, soups, spreads, and dips, and gourmet grocery items such as hand made cheeses and extra virgin olive oil.
And the San Francisco Bay area's first public biodiesel filling station is scheduled to open this summer, said the Associated Press. Biofuel Oasis, a Berkeley, Calif.-based retailer, said its station will feature credit-card operated pumps, air and water hoses and a c-store. The four pumps will be solar powered, and they will only dispense biodiesel, which is frequently made from products such as vegetable oil or soy. The c-store will sell organic lemonade.
"We think this is going to bring biodiesel to a whole new level," said Melissa Hardy, Biofuel Oasis co-owner. "We like to think of this as the anti-gas station."
The company's website tagline: May you never go to a gas station again!
The Bay Area is home to about a dozen other biofuel suppliers, but most are collectives that require members to work a few hours a month and are open limited hours. Biofuel Oasis, a for-profit, worker-owned business belonging to six women, sells biodiesel to "anyone who pulls up," Hardy said. It also offers biodiesel deliveries of 100 gallons or more to the East Bay Area.
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