Which C-Stores Have the Best Restrooms?

BOSTON — Forty percent of consumers said they fear needing to use the restroom but not knowing where to find a clean one—a 3% increase from last year, according to GasBuddy’s 2019 summer travel survey. Despite this increase, however, cleanliness ratings for convenience-store restrooms have actually jumped 6% since 2017.

Boston-based GasBuddy collected data between September 2016 and April 2019 for this report. Brands needed to have at least 20 locations in a state to be included in the analysis.

• Click here to read GasBuddy’s rankings of the top c-stores during first-quarter 2019.

“The reputation of gas-station restrooms has cleaned up significantly in the past three years, with brands making concentrated efforts to make their facilities sparkle,” said Frank Beard, convenience store and retail trends analyst for GasBuddy. “In fact, companies like Maverik and Sinclair respectively doubled and tripled their share of states with the top-rated restrooms in the span of a year, further proving the competition is overflowing at gas-station restrooms nationwide.”

Here are the top-rated c-store restrooms by number of states, according to GasBuddy …

Maverik and Wawa both captured the top restroom ratings in six states, resulting in a first-place tie. Maverik won in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming, while Wawa took first in Delaware, Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

QuikTrip had the top-rated restrooms in four states—Georgia, Kansas, South Carolina and North Carolina—which was good for second place.

Kwik Trip, Sinclair and Irving Oil all won in three states, resulting in a three-way tie for third place. Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin voted for Kwik Trip; Montana, North Dakota and Oregon voted for Sinclair; and Irving won in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.

There was also a three-way tie for two-state winners: Holiday had the top-rated restrooms in Alaska and Michigan; Cumberland Farms won in Connecticut and Rhode Island; and Sheetz took the top spot in Ohio and West Virginia.

Eighteen brands won the restroom polls in one state: MAPCO (Alabama), Kum & Go (Arkansas), Rotten Robbie (California), Kelley’s Market (Illinois), Casey’s General Stores (Indiana), Pilot Flying J (Kentucky), RaceTrac (Louisiana), Pride (Massachusetts), Hy-Vee (Missouri), Murphy USA (Mississippi), Bucky’s (Nebraska), Chevron (New Mexico), Stewart’s Shops (New York), Shell (South Dakota), Speedway (Tennessee), Buc-ee’s (Texas), BP (Washington, D.C.) and Aloha Petroleum (Hawaii).