Lewis & Raulerson Inc.

Billed as "retailing the friendly way," Lewis and Raulerson operates the Shell-branded Friendly Express chain of convenience stores in southeast Georgia. The company acquired several convenience store chains during the 1990s, including Sunrise Foods, the Georgia Lil' Champ locations and Friendly Marts_and Shell Express eventually gave way to Friendly Express Inc.

The retailer is known for an array of food options, including homemade DeDe's doughnuts (made fresh every day at majority of locations) and its Express Market Pizza. The chain's fountain drink program is armed with 12 to 16 heads, as well as flavor shots. Friendly Express recently partnered with ZipLine on development of Express Rewards, a loyalty program integrated with private label debit on ZipLine's platform. Within it, customers receive incentives, such as fuel discounts, "surprise and delight" offers and more. Friendly Express also partnered with ZipLine's consumer engagement team for brand strategy that includes naming and logo design, employee training, point-of-purchase strategy and design and a wide range of campaign tactics designed to drive adoption.

For benchmarking purposes, store counts are year-end 2019.