The 5 C-Store Chains With the Cleanest Restrooms

CHICAGO -- Some retail executives have said that spotless restrooms are the best way to offer customers a clean, welcoming environment. This is especially true for c-stores, which are often stopping points for customers traveling long distances on highways.

Nearly three in four American drivers (72%) say they stop to use the restroom when driving on a vacation, compared to 68% who purchase gas and 66% who buy food or drinks, making it the most frequent reason for stopping, according to National Association of Convenience Stores data.

New data from Technomic’s Consumer Brand Metrics (CBM) program reveals the c-store chains ranked highest for restroom cleanliness according to recent customers. CBM scores are based on the percentage of visitors who said a chain does a “very good” job of offering clean restrooms. CBM tracks leading c-store chains, as well as a few smaller c-store concepts, to provide a complete regional representation.

Here are the top five chains, ranked from fifth to first …

Score: 51.0%

More than half of consumers who visited Thorntons in the past month said the chain does a great job keeping its restrooms clean. Thorntons often advertises its spotless restroom facilities with signage on the front of the building.

Score: 52.0%

Fifty-two percent of recent customers rank Cenex Ampride’s bathrooms as very clean. Women in particular helped boost this chain’s ranking, with 56.7% of recent female visitors citing the restroom cleanliness as very good.

Score: 52.2%

Just more than 52% of recent visitors rank Rutter’s Farm Stores’ restrooms as very clean. CBM data also shows that 57.5% of recent customers rank Rutter’s kitchen and food-area cleanliness as excellent—the highest of any c-store chain.

Rutter’s a few years ago converted its restrooms to touch-free, which helps prevent the transmission of germs. Three-fifths of consumers say it is important that c-store bathrooms have touch-free equipment, according to Technomic’s 2016 CSP Consumer Study.

Score: 53.5%

More than half of recent customers say Sheetz does a very good job of offering clean restrooms. Women helped the chain secure second place overall, with 56.8% of recent female customers saying Sheetz excels at restroom cleanliness.

Score: 54.5%

Of all c-store chains, recent customers award QuikTrip with the highest ratings for clean restrooms. Also, more than three-fifths of recent customers (62.0%) rank QuikTrip as the best c-store chain for the overall cleanest interior.

QuikTrip was also found to have the second-cleanest restrooms of any c-store chain in a past CSP/Service Intelligence Mystery Shop study.