ST. CHARLES, Ill. -- When Illinois residents run out, soon they no longer will be able to run out to White Hen Pantry. Instead, a trip to 7-Eleven might be in order.
This week, representatives of convenience-store chain 7-Eleven said the company will renovate White Hen stores throughout the state and in Indiana, removing the White Hen brand name and making the stores 7-Eleven.
A contractor working on the rebranding of one store in La Grange Park, Ill., told CSP Daily News most of the stores will be getting only cosmetic changes, [image-nocss] with new signage and the introduction of 7-Eleven's brand colors throughout. The La Grange Park store, however, was getting a new cooler to replace an outdated model. During construction, just about everything in the store was being sold for 50% off to keep traffic coming into the site.
Meanwhile, 7-Eleven spokesperson Margaret Chabris told the Kane County Chronicle that the White Hen stores in St. Charles and Geneva, Ill., would be converted to the 7-Eleven format this summer. Employees at one of the stores, however, were unsure when the changes would take place. We actually don't know when, but it's going to happen, store manager Courtney Nystrom told the newspaper. It's just kind of going to happen when it happens.
Dick Untch, the city of Geneva's community development director, said the city issued a permit to the White Hen store at Randall Court to change its sign. And in St. Charles, Theresa Fawcett, the city's economic development coordinator, said the West Main Street store applied for a similar sign permit.
The move is consistent with 7-Eleven's strategy for the Chicago market since it bought Lombard-based White Hen Pantry Inc. last August, Chabris said.
This is no secret; it's part of what we planned all along, she said. Our goal was to build the 7-Eleven brand in Chicagoland, and this is one of the ways we are doing it.
Chabris said 10 stores in northeast Illinois already had undergone the transformation. The company has renovations under way at 10 other Chicago-area stores. By the end of the year, 7-Eleven intends to have converted 100 White Hen stores to the 7-Eleven brand.
When 7-Eleven bought White Hen, there were 206 White Hen stores in the Chicago area and northwest Indiana, and an additional 55 licensed in Boston. With the purchase of White Hen, 7-Eleven grew to operate, franchise and license more than 7,100 stores in North America.
The White Hen name will not just suddenly cease to exist, Chabris said. But it will be phased out over the course of several years.
How fast the transformations take place, however, depends on several factors, Chabris told the newspaper. First, she said, the renovations were not cheap. The interior of the stores were changed, including new shelving, new counters, rearranged product placement, and the installation of 7-Eleven's trademark Slurpee machines. This is not just as simple as slapping a new sign on the front, Chabris said.
She said 7-Eleven was honoring all franchise agreements in place when the White Hen chain was bought.
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