DES MOINES, Iowa — Kum & Go opened the doors of its first-ever no-fuel, no-parking retail walk-up store—unofficially called a ‘godega’—in downtown Des Moines, Iowa, a new concept for the 60-year-old convenience-store chain. The 3,000-square-foot store is located in the newly renovated Edna Griffin Building, a landmark site in Iowa’s civil rights history.
“Kum & Go is a brand built on convenience,” said Kum & Go President Tanner Krause. “How do we make it easier and easier for customers to interact with us? With more and more customers living and working downtown, putting a store in the heart of Des Moines allows Kum & Go to be even more convenient for our community.”
The walk-up store has the same finishes, lighting and aisles as traditional Kum & Go locations. It features freshly prepared foods, a large assortment of beverages and snacks, including healthy options, as well as health aids, phone accessories and craft beers and wines, the company said.
The store also focuses on sustainability. It will provide recycled paper bags instead of plastic bags, as well as compostable silverware and straws, recyclable cups and lids and post-consumer recycled food packaging.
This pilot location also pays tribute to the legacy of Edna Griffin, the civil rights pioneer and human rights activist, with an art installation by Jordan Weber, a Des Moines artist and activist whose work focuses on inner-city communities nationwide.
“We’re especially happy to have this store in the Edna Griffin building, the site of a pivotal moment in our country’s civil rights struggle,” said Krause. “In 1948, the store in this space became notorious as a symbol of exclusion and prejudice. I’m honored that Kum & Go is in this same space, 70 years later, our doors proudly open to everyone.”
- Kum & Go is No. 18 on the Top 40 update to CSP’s2019 Top 202 ranking of U.S. c-store chains by number of retail outlets. CSP will release the complete 2020 list in June.
Des Moines-based Kum & Go has approximately 400 c-stores in 11 states: Iowa, Arkansas, Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wyoming.
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