Yesway Moving Ahead With Plans to Rebuild, Remodel
By Greg Lindenberg on Jan. 04, 2021FORT WORTH, Texas — Convenience-store retailer Yesway recently opened its second Allsup’s Market concept store, the first new store opening since the acquisition of the recently acquired Allsup’s Convenience Stores.
The new store in Vaughn, N.M., has nearly 5,500 square feet of interior merchandising space and 20 fueling positions, including four new dedicated diesel lanes. It replaces an older, 2,400-square-foot Allsup’s store, which had only six fueling positions.
“The Vaughn Allsup’s Market concept store will now offer our customers a greatly expanded selection of grocery and perishable items, including fresh, never frozen meat and produce, naturally produced milk, frozen foods, baby items and much more,” said Tom Trkla, chairman and CEO for Yesway and one ofCSP’s 2020 Power 20. “These new product selections are a much-desired addition to our already terrific assortment of Allsup’s favorite snacks, sodas, private-label products and hot foods, including, of course, our world famous Allsup’s burrito. We are pleased to be able to give our loyal customers more of what they love about Allsup’s.”
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Here are more details on Yesway's growth plans ...
The Vaughn Allsup’s Market store represents the initial launch of Yesway’s accelerated real estate investment campaign. In October, Yesway completed the private placement of an additional $235 million of equity. The new capital will be used to fund an extensive raze-and-rebuild and store-remodel campaign across the chain’s portfolio, and to pursue complimentary acquisitions to further expand the Yesway and Allsup’s retail brand presence, the company said.
“Over the past nine months, Mark Allsup, Greg Gardner, and I looked at every Yesway and Allsup’s store in our portfolio and identified older- and smaller-format stores in existing markets that we believed could benefit from larger-format stores with an expanded fuel and diesel presence,” said Tom Brown, Yesway’s director of real estate. “Over the course of the next 18 months, we will complete raze and rebuilds in 27 locations, resulting in new 5,500-square-foot prototype stores in Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma, all of which will have expanded fuel and diesel platforms.”
Construction on the next five raze and rebuild stores will commence shortly in Wall, Bangs, Tuscola, Decatur and Slaton, Texas.
“Our raze-and-rebuild program provides us with a unique opportunity to build these new prototype stores on the sites of existing Allsup’s stores because we typically own land adjacent to the stores. This allows us to keep the existing store open while we commence construction of the new store, with little or no impact on inside sales and fuel volumes,” he said.
In addition to the raze-and-rebuild program, Yesway has commenced the major remodeling of approximately 100 additional Yesway and Allsup’s stores in Texas and New Mexico. The extensive improvements include exterior upgrades to store fronts, parking lots and signage, the addition of LED lighting under the canopy and inside the stores, and upgrades to store interiors, fountain and beverage areas and bathrooms. These improvements are being made to better serve its customers by providing an expanded selection of merchandise and, in the case of the existing Yesway stores in Texas and New Mexico, being able to sell the Allsup’s burrito and hot food platform, along with Allsup’s bread, milk and eggs.
Yesway is also looking to add to its portfolio by building new-to-industry (NTI) stores in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and South Dakota. To this end, the company has commenced land acquisition, design and planning of six stores in markets in which it currently has a presence and in new markets that the company believes would benefit from having a new Allsup’s store, it said.
While much of the company’s top-line growth will be fueled by expansion within the existing portfolio in the coming months, the company is still actively looking at portfolios representing approximately 200 stores to acquire in its current geographic footprint.
Meanwhile, Yesway also has expanded its senior leadership team with the hiring of two industry veterans. Tate Cutrer has joined the firm from RaceTrac Petroleum as Yesway’s new senior vice president of human resources, and Aaron Everett will take over as Yesway’s new chief information officer, joining the firm from Lucky’s Market.
Cutrer most recently served as the director of talent development and learning for Atlanta-based RaceTrac, where he also held various senior HR roles across the organization, including regional HR director of operations and director of recruitment.
Everett most recently served as the CIO for Boulder, Colo.-based Lucky’s Market, where he led all information technology strategy, budgeting and operational initiatives for the firm’s 75 stores. Previously, he was the senior director and vice president of technology for Staples, where he directed IT, budgeting, and operational initiatives for business-to-business and retail enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications for users across 1,300 U.S. and 300 Canada locations.
“We are thrilled to have these experienced convenience-store veterans lead Yesway’s human resources and information technology departments,” said Trkla. “They are joining our team during an exciting time of continued, fast-paced growth, and we expect their extensive c-store experience will help propel our ongoing expansion.”
Both Cutrer and Everett are based out of Yesway’s new Fort Worth, Texas, headquarters. The company has officially announced the opening of the new corporate office, consolidating its former Des Moines, Iowa, headquarters and the former headquarters of Allsup’s in Clovis, N.M.
- Yesway isNo. 17 on CSP’s 2020 Top 202 ranking of largest c-store chains in the U.S. by number of retail outlets.
Founded and operated by BW Gas & Convenience Retail LLC, Yesway has a portfolio of 402 stores located in Texas, New Mexico, South Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Wyoming, Oklahoma and Nebraska, including the 304-store Allsup’s chain.