Kwik Trip

With just a day to spare in 2021, Kwik Trip on Dec. 30 opened its 800th convenience store, in Holman, Wis. The newest Kwik Trip is known as a Generation 3 c-store, incorporating the chain’s latest design using softer colors. At 9,000 square feet, it features a car wash and a side diesel canopy, which offers a non-ethanol fuel station for boats, campers and trailers.

Family owned, La Crosse, Wis.-based Kwik Trip, which was named the 2021 nation’s best gas station brand in a USA Today readers’ choice survey, is one of the biggest independently held c-store chains in the country, employing more than 32,000. It serves customers in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin under the Kwik Trip and Kwik Star banners. It produces more than 80% of the products sold in its stores, supplied by its own bakery, commissary, dairy and distribution center.

Late in 2021, Kwik Trip said it would switch to pre-pay only at its fuel pumps on Jan. 3, 2022, because its employees were spending too much time watching fuel islands for drive-offs.

Also in 2021, Kwik Trip earned an extra $5 million in performance-based tax incentives from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. for continuing to expand development and staffing of its food production and support campus.

For benchmarking purposes, store counts are as of Jan. 1, 2022.