Street Corner Opens ‘Urban Superette’

TOPEKA, Kan. -- Street Corner, a franchise-based convenience-store brand located predominantly in shopping malls and urban multiuse developments, has opened new locations in Chattanooga, Tenn., and Jackson, N.J.

Topeka, Kansas-based Street Corner has approximately 40 franchises in 16 states.

The stores mark the 42nd and 43rd for the chain.

Street Corner’s store designs include self-service office stores to mall stores to full-fledged gas stations with pump-side payment and delivery.

Click through for a look at the Chattanooga store …

The Chattanooga Street Corner store is an “urban superette,” designed to cater to dense population centers. It offers amenities such as a deli, salad bar and other fresh-food offerings, and features the company’s latest technology, design and lighting elements.

“Following a generational exodus, people are coming back to the cities, particularly millennials who want to live near where they work, dine and shop. But these mixed-use centers and city centers are often wastelands when it comes to traditional grocery stores,” said Peter La Colla, Street Corner’s CEO. “We’re catering to those built-in populations. Our urban superette market is the convergence of convenience, grocery and deli.”

The new Street Corner in Chattanooga opened on Aug. 22 in The Clemons, a historic building in the City Center that has been renovated to include a mix of apartments and retailers. Besides groceries and the usual convenience-store items, the store offers locally sourced pastries, chocolate, breads and coffee; espresso-style drinks; a curated collection of craft beers; unique jewelry; and flowers from a nearby florist.

In addition, the store’s deli offers Boar’s Head meats and gourmet sandwiches. Health-conscious customers and office workers can also take advantage of the only self-service salad bar in the center of Chattanooga.

“The idea is to provide a true Chattanooga experience that reflects our community’s expertise in all we do, especially healthy living,” said franchise operations partner Elia Gouvitsa.

The urban superette also features a grocery section that can be partitioned off when the store closes and self-checkout with fingerprint payment to offer 24/7 accessibility to building residents. Street Corner will launch an app for online ordering and delivery in October, it said.

“From lunch deliveries to fresh flowers and custom-made baskets, we’ll be able to meet the needs of busy professionals in downtown,” said Gouvitsa.

The New Jersey store, a 196-square foot inline store, opened Sept. 9 in the food court of Jackson Premium Outlets, a shopping destination in Ocean County. The store will cater to shoppers and employees with snacks, beverages, coffee, energy drinks and lottery tickets.

It is the second store in New Jersey for owners Sameer Joshi and Himanshu Choksi; they opened a store in Rockaway Townsquare in Rockaway Township in November 2014.