You Gotta Wawa

Ralph Wiggum Voice: I'm an influencer now!

Wawa is here, having opened its first Ohio location in Liberty Township earlier this month.

I am excited about Wawa coming to the Queen City, and you should be, too. First things first: I have, historically, been more of a Sheetz guy, but Wawa is on equal footing in my pantheon of high-end gas station / convenience stores.

Wawa is Eastern PA, Sheetz is Western PA, but both have grown well beyond the Keystone state. Sheetz, being western, is more what I grew up with and has more fried food. Wawa made its way down to Woodbridge, and even opened up shop in Washington, D.C., not far from the offices my publication has occupied over the years.

While Donato’s foray into Northern Virginia excited me equally back in 2012, that failed. (Though they appear ready to try again.) I think Wawa is likely here in Ohio to stay.

Much like the origins of United Dairy Farmers (heck, it’s in the name!), Wawa began as a dairy in Delaware County, PA, serving both PA and Jersey.

It is not uncommon to see neighborhood Wawas without gas pumps because of these origins, but these are typically in college towns and crowded urban neighborhoods. The expansion Wawas are pretty standardized, and I expect since these new Wawas coming to Cincy are all new builds (so far), we’ll get maximum Wawa. Mount Washington is getting a Wawa, next to the UDF at the bottom of Beechmont near Lunken and El Rancho Rankin.

Doctor Jennifer Holt, a marketing prof at NKU, talked to Local12 about what we can expect from this injection of competition:

"So, if you're, you know, loyal to UDF, and you go in and you get your ice cream there, it's not that you're going to drop all of that and necessarily go to Wawa, but there's a lot to be said for how they can compete in this area as well, and this drives innovation. You know, better stores," said Holt.

So, good things! In the short term, this is bad news for UDF. QuickTrip (QT) is also coming to the region, which seems to me to be UDF/Kroger dominated, with Speedway and Alfaa convenience stores competing for their scraps. An employee of Meijer told me that the chain tends to stick to the exurbs for its gas stations, but that is generally true of its behemoth stores.

My memory of UDF as a kid in Cleveland was “good ice cream” and that was it. Times were different then. I was impressed when moving here to see how it had evolved, but knew of the coming Wawa invasion, which will make UDF better.

The new UDF pizza (which I have yet to try) is likely the first in a bunch of new menu items we are likely to see from UDF. Right now, they’re faced with a choice of competing with Wawa or competing with QT and others on hot food. Roller Grills are great, but Wawa’s expansive menu reaches far, far beyond it.

The good news is that there seems to be a lot of idle space at some of the UDFs I have been to. Idle space in retail is generally bad, but if you need to rework your stores, it’s good to have it to begin with rather than having to build or rebuild.

UDF’s doughnuts and drip coffee? Great. Wawa’s mixed drink and high-end coffee game is better, but their donuts aren’t really a direct competitor. They have a more east coast flavor profile: apple fritters, boston cream donuts, and coffee rolls. Oh, and bagels and pretzels. Their bagels are good, but their pretzels are very good. Not Servatii level. Don’t sleep on their packaged beverages (teas, lemonades, Arnold Palmers, cranberry juice, etc.) either.

Perhaps Wawa will adapt to Cincinnati’s tastes and introduce sports-themed donuts, but I doubt it. The same goes for the Philly-focused branding and co-branding — it might make its way here, but it’s likely to turn off more locals than it attracts Philly transplants. I expect they’ll stick with more generic options.

While UDF has a lot of brand loyalty in the bank, just by their very existence, Wawa is going to eat into UDF’s market share on gas and other things. Over time, they’ll win even more dollars as customers discover who has a comparative advantage in certain categories in their mind.

A Wawa Smoothie or Refresher might sound better on a hot summer day than a UDF milkshake.

I’ve long been a fan of “The Galaxy” for the way it looks and tastes, but these new sour cherry bubbles? Sign. Me. Up.

Wawa has, in recent years, added pizza and burgers¹ to their menu. They’re still not into fried things like Sheetz is, and it’s pretty amazing what they’re able to offer without a fryer.

How did I end up writing this post, and I can hear you, reader “Jim: You’re burying the lede. How did you become a Wawa influencer™?”

Wawa knows I am a fan. I follow it on Instagram, and they know I live in Ohio now (or at least connect to Instagram from here all the time) so they’ve been sending me targeted ads like this one:

They call it a Swag Sweepstakes, but as I entered it (my late mother being a prolific contester, so much so that we called her “Contest Mom”), I figured: Probably everyone “wins.”

After all, why not if people like myself are offering to turn themselves into free billboards for a gas station / convenience store? And also basically tell people who ask “hey is that Wawa?” that “yes it is.” Or to have somebody from the east coast recognize somebody repping Wawa could spur a conversation about it in a Kroger aisle, or at a soccer game. One of them might even have a blog he created where he writes about things like this.

The ROI is hard to measure, but one way Wawa is able to do this is by including a $10 gift card with the swag set. You could track to see the redemption rate.

And yes, waiting for me on my return from spring break back east was a box full of Wawa swag and a gift card.

Look, I am not going to lie to you: I am totally going to wear the Wawa socks. I do not understand why they were included, maybe that’s a thing with younger people I am unaware of, but I wear them with dress clothes to work or work-style events because it’s quirky and so am I.

The hat? It is a great hat. A Yupoong Classics snapback, embroidered on the front and back. On the back? You Gotta Wawa! Does it look like a MAGA hat? Kinda. Until you realize that’s a big fucking Canada Goose. Which is part of the Wawa name!

The town, Wawa, Pennsylvania comes from an Ojibwe word we’we, meaning “snow goose.” Funnily enough, a failed Congressional candidate in New Jersey used an old iteration of its logo in his 2022 campaign and got a cease and desist letter from the company.²

My guess is the Mount Washington Wawa won’t open until late fall, as they just started construction earlier this month. Perhaps even 2026. We’ll see.

In the meantime, if you see a guy sporting a red Wawa goose hat, it is probably me. While we’ll likely miss Hoagiefest® this year, I look forward to telling you about it next year.

FREQUENT READER UPDATE:

A new section on posts for regulars. Things that don’t qualify as a full post, or updates on previous posts.

• Kroger’s “Kitchen 1883” concept, which I covered in January, is no more. The Enquirer reports that all but one location is closed or closing.

1. Burger is on par with Sheetz’s. It’s not one that touches a griddle and you can tell. The pizza I have yet to try.

2. For you legal readers, you know I know you wanted to read the letter.