TULSA, Okla. — QuikTrip Corp., a regional convenience-store retailer with more than 950 locations in 16 states, is expanding further into Illinois with three new stores near Chicago.
The company, which currently has five c-stores in Illinois concentrated near St. Louis, told CSP Daily News that it plans to open the first new location in the state in Peru, between central Illinois and Chicago, in April 2023, followed by the second in Bellwood, in the western suburbs, also in April 2023, and the third in Lansing, in the far south suburbs, in June 2023.
The Lansing location will replace a former Kmart store that closed six years ago, reported the Chicago Business Journal. The site is about five acres along the busy south suburban corridor near the Indiana border, right off of the Bishop Ford expressway, said the report.
- QuikTrip is No. 10 on CSP’s 2022 Top 202 ranking of U.S. c-store chains by number of company-owned retail outlets.
“We currently have three stores under construction in the [greater] Chicago area,” Aisha Jefferson-Smith, spokesperson for Tulsa, Okla.-based QuikTrip, told CSP.
“All stores will be our new remote travel center design featuring a larger designed lot and more spacious store—approximately 8,200 square feet—than a traditional QT,” she said. “All travel centers will be equipped with QT Kitchens that offer made fresh to order food and drink items. We will also offer grab-and-go freshly crafted sandwiches, salads and wraps [as well as] … doughnuts and pastries.”
In June, QuikTrip opened its first c-store in Colorado, in Firestone, approximately 45 minutes north of Denver. It is scheduled to have five stores in the Denver area by the end of 2022.
The company is also expanding with new technology. In August, QuikTrip opened a non-gasoline convenience store with Amazon’s no-checkout “just walk out” technology in the BOK Tower at One Williams Center in Tulsa.
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