Kevin Smartt bought Kwik Chek in 2001. At the time, it consisted of about 20 stores and a small fuel wholesale business.
Since then, it has more than doubled its store count to 48 locations in Texas and Oklahoma and rebranded to TXB, or Texas Born.
“I wanted to create a brand that had a heart,” TXB CEO Smartt said, speaking in February at CSP’s Convenience Retailing University event in Austin, Texas. “Something that my team members could connect to and that our communities could connect to.”
Naming it TXB felt like a “true calling for me,” Smartt, a lifelong Texan, said.
Smartt said he wanted food to be the center of the brand. He started with quality first, then worked back into affordability and efficiencies.
- TXB is No. 131 on CSP’s2025 Top 202 ranking of top convenience-store chain’s by U.S. store count.
“And through that process, we raised our customers’ expectations of what to expect I think in the convenience-store channel,” Smartt said.
TXB is not just a slogan, Smartt said.
“It’s who we are, and I say it’s our brand filter,” he said. ‘So for us, it makes brand decisions easier when you have a filter to look through.”
It’s so important that TXB hired a dedicated brand manager. Everything that has TXB on it filters through the brand manager, Smartt said.
When Kwik Chek rebranded to TXB, it remodeled and built new stores at the same time. Smartt said they deployed soft assets to every store—like cups, uniforms, promotional signage, private-label products. That allowed TXB to start telling its story to its team members and to start telling the communities it operated in what they were doing, too, he said.
The goal with the private-label products was not to offer a product at a lower cost, Smartt said. It was about creating something of quality or uniqueness. They offer items like jerky, water, coffee and more. All private-label offerings are locally sourced, manufactured, produced, bottled or bagged in Texas.
TXB has a dedication to making things the best that can be, and that includes its food, which Smartt described as high quality, locally sourced food, made with fresh ingredients. They have a variety of made-to-order options as well as hot and cold grab-and-go items.
“Real food, real value,” Smartt said, showing a billboard promoting TXB’s foodservice offering.
“We try to stay as much out of promoting as we can on price, and really talk about brand equity, quality and use our voice of authenticity,” he said.
Smartt said he is doing quick-service restaurant volumes at their stores. If he were a QSR—he wouldn’t want to see a TXB move in across the street.
“Food, for us, has raised the bar,” Smartt said. “So when food improves, I think customers’ expectations raise.”
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