Retailers are innovating and modifying their foodservice offerings throughout all dayparts to stay competitive with other c-stores and fast-food establishments, the latter of which many c-stores increasingly view as serious competition.
Breakfast and lunch remain the “bread and butter” at Rutter’s 88 convenience stores, but they’ve seen a slight shift toward the dinner daypart, said Philip Santini, senior director of food service and bar strategy for the York, Pennsylvania-based chain.
One reason for this is the options Rutter’s is offering, Santini said. But also, as of mid-January 2026, there are five locations with sports bars and lounges that “are sort of filling in the void of some of the other locations and bringing a little bit more traction to the space during a period of time when, generally speaking, it’s a bit slower.”
The first two 14,000-square-foot sports bar and convenience-store concepts opened in 2025 in Johnstown and Milton, Pennsylvania. For customers 21 and older, they feature a selection of adult beverages such as canned cocktails, beer and wine. There are more than 20 65-inch TVs, live sports tickers with real-time updates and five video gaming terminals.
Santini said the addition of bars and lounges has resulted in exponential growth and has transformed the dinner experience for customers.
“They’re dining in, eating, watching TV, grabbing an adult beverage,” he said.
Even at Rutter’s locations without bars, Santini said they’ve noticed dinner items on their menu have been selling well.
‘We can’t be transitioning for lunch too quickly.’
Santini attributes this uptick in dinner not only to the offerings but to evolving consumer behavior.
“People’s habits are changing, generally speaking,” he said. “They’re willing to make less stops. And because we have so many more options, I think we have a place for people to do more than one thing at a time. Again, going with our tagline of ‘Why go anywhere else?’”
Some of the more recent new offerings at Rutter’s include a pasta menu, introduced about a year ago, Santini said.
“It’s now starting to pick up steam,” Santini said. “We have two bases—a fettuccine Alfredo and a spaghetti with marinara—and accompaniments like meatballs and chicken. We’re seeing that take off in a very positive way. And then there’s this pizza program we’ve been testing at several locations. We’ve seen that incrementally growing year over year, and I think the pizza is much better than it was.”
Despite these successes, Santini acknowledges the challenges of capturing the dinner crowd.
“Dinner is one of those areas we have yet to conquer,” he said, adding that from 3 to 7 p.m., it’s a bit of a lull but then picks up when people “are trying to grab other elements of their evening.”
“They’ll grab a beer, a snack,” he said, adding that Rutter’s is seeing growth in late-night sales.
Santini added that people are “trading convenience over destination, time, going to three or four places, because now they can do so many different things at one location, really trying to hone in on c-stores and say, ‘Well, I can get all of this at one or two places. Why do I need to go to the third or fourth or fifth place to do all of this, especially when gas is a thing or traffic is a thing, and there’s only so many hours in the day.”
Anne Hughes, senior product manager for Temple, Texas-based McLane Fresh, said that dinner remains a daypart “in which we see a lot of opportunity for growth. In 2026, we are launching a line of frozen meals to give retailers and consumers more options that fit nicely into that daypart.”
Dinner is a challenge and opportunity
Liza Salaria, senior vice president of category management and foodservice at Chicago-based W. Capra, said the dinner daypart continues to be a huge challenge and opportunity for the c-store industry.
“We are naturally good at breakfast and lunch, and that’s because the products that we offer, whether it be breakfast sandwiches, hot dogs, sandwiches, they just fit nicely into what consumers traditionally eat for those dayparts,” the senior consultant said.
However, she continues, “When you think about dinner, you start to get into feeding families.” And with dinner, “The first thing you think about is something hot. Traditionally we don’t eat a cold sandwich for dinner. And you think about, potentially if you’re feeding your family, how do you accommodate maybe several different opinions in the family? So we’ve struggled in the industry.”
Salaria said she surmises this is why Wawa, Pennsylvania-based Wawa started selling pizza.
‘Dinner is one of those areas we have yet to conquer.’
“Even if it’s offered only at 4 p.m. onward, I thought it was a pretty smart idea because you’re going into a new daypart with a new product that probably has different equipment and operational requirements,” she said. “So you want to tailor all that to that daypart so you meet customer demand with quality and speed.”
A c-store retailer might not want to start offering some of these items during the lunch daypart because it could make “your operational chassis very complex, and you may not be able to get out all those sandwiches if you’ve got pizza going and things like that.”
Salaria said retailers should think about what menu item meets the daypart—and consider limiting an item to that daypart to execute it flawlessly and get high customer satisfaction.
“And then market it: ‘We’re now in the dinner daypart,’ and follow all those steps because, again, it’s a huge opportunity for the industry, and we have not been able to really crack it,” she said.
Hot food warms up sales
Maddie Whitehead, director of food service for Jeannie’s Kitchen, owned by and located in U-Stop Convenience Shops, said they have gravitated toward hot food to-go offerings over the past couple of years. There are 40 stores in the Lincoln, Nebraska-based U-Stop chain, which is owned by Whitehead Oil.
“We’ve found a lot of success with that because I do think that it allows more customers to come in through the front door that we haven’t seen before, and it ultimately helps us compete with some other restaurants and fast-food places in in in town,” Whitehead said.
There are eight stores with U-Stop’s grab-and-go Jeannie’s Express, and two of those also have the made-to-order Jeannie’s Kitchen concept. There’s also one Jeannie’s Cafe, a small sit-down diner offering all three dayparts with a full menu.
Whitehead said dayparts have changed over the years, as has the c-store customer.
“Originally you were probably just heading in for a Twinkie bar or soda or maybe a roller grill item, but now you’re grabbing a hot sandwich and maybe adding some more items in your basket now that you have that sandwich.” she said, adding that foodservice has been one of their strongest categories at the convenience stores where they’ve added a Jeannie’s Kitchen.
To complement sandwich purchases, Whitehead said customers are buying more packaged beverages like Coke, Sprite and Gatorade—and there’s been a “good lift on things like salty snacks, like chips.”
Main-course items doing well are cheeseburgers, the No. 1 seller for lunch and dinner, and a sausage, egg and cheese croissant that has been breakfast’s top seller, she added.
‘When you think about dinner, you start to get into feeding families.’
Breakfast always has been a staple at U-Stop, though lunch and dinner have gained energy thanks to new rotating items. Whitehead aims to bring in one new item per quarter—and then determine if it will “stick around for the permanent menu.”
One example is a brisket, egg and cheese croissant—popular but pricey to serve daily. Whitehead reclassified it as an LTO, running it for a single quarter.
“Our customers were really excited to have that back,” she said. “It was our No. 1 breakfast LTO for this year, and we’ll definitely be bringing it back next year. I see it more so as an item that would spark interest.”
She added, “It makes the customer think, ‘Oh, this item is back again. I got to go back to Jeannie’s and try it.’”
Breakfast edges later
When it comes to the blurring of dayparts, one area where Whitehead sees a lot of overlap is between breakfast and lunch. Because of this, she requires breakfast items—sandwiches, pizzas and burritos—to stay stocked up until 10 a.m., and sometimes as late as 10:30 or 11 a.m. on the weekends, to avoid “missing out on a lot of sales.”
“We can’t be transitioning for lunch too quickly,” she added.
Hughes noted that the traditional breakfast window is shifting later in the morning and blending into lunch, with consumers grabbing coffee and breakfast items well past the usual hours.
“All-day breakfast remains popular, especially with versatile items like breakfast sandwiches and sliders,” she said. “For example, our King’s Hawaiian sliders have performed extremely well this year.”
In addition to breakfast edging later, dayparts are continuing to evolve and adapt to changing consumer eating habits, a trend that accelerated during the pandemic, Hughes said.
There also has been increased interest in better-for-you options.
“Think high-protein, fresh foods and snacks,” Hughes said. “Fresh food, customization and made-to-order options are increasingly important and becoming an expectation among consumers, and c-stores are becoming increasingly trusted by consumers for having QSR-quality and offerings.”
Sara Wilson, foodservice category manager at Jacksonville, Florida-based Gate Petroleum, which has 70 stores, has seen a shift in daypart times in recent years, which she said was brought on by COVID-19 and people not traveling to work.
“Some of it has shifted just a little bit to between breakfast and lunch—an early lunch hour when we have someone coming back in or someone going in late to work,” she said.
‘Think high-protein, fresh foods and snacks.’
The 6 to 7 a.m. slot is still their No. 1 time, she said, but business picks up a bit more around 10:30 and 11:30 a.m., “or sometimes even more like 9:45 to 10 a.m.—because I think the society change of how your hours for work have changed. Not everyone’s working that 8 to 5 anymore.
“You could be working at 2 in the morning and getting off at 10, and you’re grabbing your breakfast to go home and go to bed to start the next day,” she added.
Wilson said they offer a variety of breakfast items, including burritos, empanadas and a Monster Meat Bagel available at 6 a.m. The Monster Meat Bagel is available from the made-to-order kiosk, the other items from the warmer.
“We see lots of construction crews and lawn crews coming in and getting their coffee with their breakfast burrito and grabbing the Gatorade and Red Bull with a case of water and chips and two pizzas,” she said. “They’re taking it so they don’t have to leave for lunch.”
Hughes said the lines between dayparts continue to blur, especially with all-day menus and expanded snacking options.
“The mid-morning and mid-afternoon dayparts occasions are increasing in popularity, and younger consumers are moving away from three traditional meals toward more frequent snacking,” she said.
Portability is important
Portability and ease of eating are other important factors in c-store foodservice dayparts.
“Technically, a sandwich is portable, but would I like to eat a meatball sub while I’m in the car? Probably not,” Santini of Rutter’s said. “I’m probably going to go with a wrap, and maybe the sauce is limited to mayonnaise or something, so I don’t spill it all over me. So, if I can eat something with a fork versus a fork and knife, that would be easier for me to consume either on the go or if I’m going out.”
If a customer is ordering in or taking the food home, the purpose, Santini said, is, “One, I didn’t really want to cook, or I didn’t want to do anything else.’ So why don’t we make it a little bit easier for them?”
Examples of such foods that don’t require a knife include anything in a bowl, like macaroni and cheese, he said. Items that might require a knife could be chicken in a salad. However, Rutter’s cuts the chicken small enough so a knife is not required.
Data from CSP sister research arm Technomic shows that in the last four quarters, during the dinner daypart, 12% of c-store foodservice customers reported they consumed their food and beverages while driving and 15% consumed theirs in the car while parked. Meanwhile, for lunch, the numbers are 23% and 29%, respectively, and for breakfast, 31% and 28%. In “other/snack,” the numbers are 40% and 23%. The base was 20,500 c-store foodservice consumers 18 and older.
Hughes added that packaging that supports portability and ease of eating in the car is important.
‘Some of it has shifted just a little bit to between breakfast and lunch.’
“Bowls and heat-at-home meals are something we’ve been seeing gain traction as well,” said Hughes, adding that consumers are increasingly gravitating toward fresh and better-for-you options. However, “Indulgent and bold flavors remain a big hit. Spicy offerings continue to show strong growth, with LTOs and flavors featuring ingredients like hot honey being a draw for consumers.”
Hughes added, “Grab-and-go snacks and handheld items remain popular for their convenience and flexibility.”
Whitehead said limited-time offers are a solid traffic driver of new customers to the warmer. “It’s something new and exciting to try,” she said, adding that U-Stop also has been integrating some foodservice items with its loyalty app.
“We’ve test-trialed this in a couple of different items, and it’s definitely seen a lot of positive impact not only in getting more users on our loyalty app, but to also get customers excited about our grab-and-go items,” she said.
Rutter’s recently ran a $1 off any burger promotion for its rewards members, a move that always results in a spike in sales, Santini said.
“We also introduced a new burger menu, and so on top of that, we’ve seen significant growth as a way of going around and saying we have this special, but we also have this really new menu, and we’re giving you a deal on it. So we’ve seen a lot of growth in that particular category,” he said.
The best-selling item at Gate Petroleum is the BacOn the Go, which is four slices of cooked bacon served in a bag.
“It’s very-high protein,” Wilson said. “It’s a great snack to add something.”
“It has beat out our pizza, surprisingly,” Wilson said. “It took some years. When we first started, it did not do well, and we cut down the hours of when we served it to try to minimize the waste.”
She added, “Everyone’s watching their protein and getting more stuff in.”
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.