A Look Inside Circle K Heartland’s New Flagship C-Store

ROCKFORD, Ill. -- Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc.’s Heartland Division held a grand opening for a new Circle K convenience store in Rockford, Ill., on July 27.

The 4,351-square-foot store is a new build located at one entrance to Cherry Vale Mall, a major shopping destination in the area.

“This store is a flagship store for the Circle K Heartland Business Unit because it is our newest and one of the largest stores in our region. It was built with the most up-to-date floor plans and design features that our company offers in North America,” a company spokesperson told CSP Daily News.

Here's a look inside the new store …

All photos by Greg Lindenberg

The forecourt offers Top Tier Circle K Miles-branded gasoline and diesel fuel.

The c-store offers fresh food options such as handmade pizza, gourmet hot dogs and made-to-go breakfast burritos.

The store features a self-service espresso machine. It grinds fresh coffee beans, heats water and steams and froths fresh milk, serving the coffee in less than 60 seconds.

The location will offer free coffee on Fridays through Aug. 24.

The store has a large fountain soda, tea and frozen drink beverage area. Customers can get a Polar Pop cup and create their own drink for 89 cents. The tagline is “With Polar Pop, It’s Your Cup. Your Rules.”

The store offers a wide selection of domestic and imported beers. The beer cave offers an extended selection of cold alcohol beverages.

The store also offers an assortment of wine and other alcohol products.

The site features a car wash developed with special seasonal cleaning formulas.

The event featured a celebratory cake and samples, as well as games, raffles, a dunk tank, a bounce house, face painting and more. The event also helped raise funds for Habitat for Humanity.

Along with the store employees, Lynn Boos, manager; Garvin Weitzel, regional director of operations; and Norm Beck, director of marketing for the Circle K Heartland Division, were on hand to take part in the festivities and greet customers.

Circle K is a wholly owned subsidiary of Laval, Quebec-based Couche-Tard. Its retail network includes nearly 10,000 c-stores in North America,  including more than 8,350 in the United States.

• Couche-Tard is No. 2 on CSP’s 2018 Top 202 ranking of c-store chains by number of locations.

Its North American network consists of 19 business units, including 15 in the United States covering 48 states and four in Canada covering all 10 provinces. The Heartland Division, based in Lisle, Ill., includes Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri and Wisconsin and has 339 corporate stores.