At Johnny’s Markets, Alexis Wood, food service director, strives to have a program that is different but consistent.
She told CSP she wants the 66 Johnny’s Market convenience stores to be different from other c-stores in terms of what they offer—but she wants all Johnny’s stores, which are owned by Marshall, Michigan-based Walters-Dimmick Petroleum Inc., to have consistency in its offerings.
“Are we consistently all serving a doughnut?” ask Wood (pictured above), who has been in foodservice for 14 years, all of them at Johnny’s. Two years ago she started in her current position of being in charge of launching a food program at Johnny’s. “Are we consistently all serving certain things?”
She doesn’t want a situation where a customer is upset because “Johnny’s down the street didn’t have what they wanted,” she said.
Wood said that most c-stores will sell a muffin, but she seeks ways to be different in her offerings, “and what I’m looking into is getting gluten free”—and she wants to be consistent in having both types of muffins for sale.
She also wants consistent operations in the building of a foodservice item at all locations.
“If we’re building a pizza or a breakfast sandwich, then we’re consistent on how that’s being prepared,” she said.
Using the consistency of a Big Mac as an example, Wood said she’s currently trying “to figure out what is it that Johnny’s is going to have that identifies us to be different—but you know that you’re going to get it at any Johnny’s you visit.”
- Walters-Dimmick Petroleum is No. 110 on CSP’s 2025 Top 202 ranking of U.S. convenience-store chains by store count.
Elsewhere, she said Johnny’s offers fresh fruit—something it has done for a long time.
“I don’t know how many c-stores offer fresh fruit, but we put a lot of focus to the fresh fruit because we’re Johnny’s Market,” she said. “We have bananas, oranges, apples. That is our thing.”
Wood added that c-store locations offer grab-and-go items in an open-air cooler, “But what I’ve been trying to think about is what would be different in my grab-and-go items.”
A few items she’s considering include pasta salad and potato salad—and using pretzel buns for sandwiches.
“You can find a sub sandwich at any location, like any gas station, but do you see it in a different way?” she said. “That’s where I’m changing the bread type—put it on pretzel bun.
“I actually just got some shipments this week of different things that I can test in my stores so I can progress to launching it,” she added.
Breakfast
In breakfast sandwiches, she said it’s common to see biscuits and croissants, but Wood just recently added a bagel.
“We have a bacon, egg and cheese on a bagel,” she said.
While Johnny’s does offer croissants and biscuits for breakfast sandwiches, “I wanted to do something different that drew more attention. The customer base right now, they're very interested. Even the team, they’re like, ‘I don’t see bagels anywhere. This is great. We have bagel sandwiches.’”
Johnny’s also sells fresh flowers, which are right at the store’s front door. “A lot of c-stores do have flowers, but they’re in the coolers,” she said.
Wood’s superiors have told her they want a foodservice program that stands out from other c-stores, she said, For instance, “They want people to think of Johnny’s and know they can get a bacon, egg and cheese bagel there,’” she said.
“That has been my biggest challenge. I have been used to more of a following aspect where I know what are the rules and guidelines with certain things in operations,” she said, adding that she’s been told, ‘ Your canvas is empty. You paint the canvas.’”
Using the field
Wood said she also “utilizes the field,” taking suggestions from employees.
“When I’m out in the stores, I love to hear the things that they have to say. ‘Why don’t we try this or why don’t we try that?’ And I love the ideas that they’re coming up with, so now that I’ve launched the bagel and the bacon, store managers have said, ‘Hey, when are we going to have a sausage, egg and cheese bagel?’ And I was like, sooner than later. Those will come over time. So, I love just letting them open their own brains.”
She said she gets great ideas from store managers and employees. “I have no shame in that,” she said. “I love it.”
But—for consistency—they first have to get permission from Wood, who will set up a process.
Sales up
Wood said that she’s been focused on adjusting the breakfast program to better emphasize breakfast sandwiches—which has resulted in increased sales.
Conversely, she said, she’s removing “more of the one-off gas station items. We don't have roller grills.”
In addition, while “a lot of people talk about chicken, we don’t really have chicken,” she said. “We do have boneless chicken wings and we do just fine. Our sales may not be as big as other people might be or what their expectation might be, but we are definitely growing in sales in our own way.
“So, simplifying my menu has definitely helped and increased my sales in the breakfast,” she said, adding that they have grab-and-go and made-to-order options.
‘Unintended operational challenges’
In an effort to expand variety and appeal, Wood two years ago introduced about 18 different breakfast items to Johnny’s warmer program.
“The intention was to increase customer satisfaction by offering more choices,” she said. “However, this led to unintended operational challenges.”
Wood shared a learning experience she had in striving for consistent but different offerings:
What went wrong:
- Operational strain: Stores struggled to maintain availability across all items, resulting in missed items on orders.
- Inventory issues: Freezers became overcrowded, and staff had trouble organizing and accessing product efficiently.
- Customer confusion: The sheer volume of options overwhelmed customers. In some cases, customers walked away without purchasing anything due to decision fatigue.
- Increased waste: Some stores experienced more food waste than sales on certain days due to unsold items expiring.
What I learned:
- More isn’t always better. A larger menu does not necessarily result in higher customer satisfaction or sales. In fact, it can have the opposite effect.
- Simplicity drives consistency. Fewer SKUs allow for better execution, easier training and improved consistency across locations.
- Operational feasibility is critical. Offerings must align with storage, labor and execution capabilities of the stores.
What I did next:
- Simplified the SKU set: Reduced the number of breakfast SKUs from 18 to eight.
- Leveraged modularity: Those eight items are now used to create 12–14 different breakfast combinations, preserving variety without the complexity.
- Improved results: This shift has led to better inventory management, more consistent execution, improved customer experience and reduced waste.
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