Boudin is a nearly off the charts per capital convenience in SW Louisiana (even without counting gas stations):
Ăpicerie is the word for grocery store in Quebec. Some do have hot tables, and some are quite small compared to a typical chain grocery store.
Hereâs a recent article about the dĂ©panneurs during Covid
Of course, sales are up at the small Úpiceries and chain grocery stores, as well as at the dépanneurs, these days!
Quite a few small restaurants in Toronto have become a hybrid of a takeout restaurant, bottle shop and corner store, to make ends meet. Before Covid shut things down, restaurants couldnât sell cocktails, wine or beer to go. Iâve noticed some gas station marts have liquor and beer available now, which is also new here.
Quite a few Toronto-resto turned bottle shop/corner store have Instagram feeds marketting their goods. Like this one. https://instagram.com/luckypennyto?igshid=fjijh7hty00d
Hereâs a popular upscale bottle shop/convenience store/resto in Montreal. https://instagram.com/tuckshopmtl?igshid=z1zyg2tsvruj
Wawa rocks. In its original road stop form and in hybrid version today. The one built in the area recently is more grocer than ever. A family of six would be wise to stop there than many other convenience and fast food joints.
The muffins are great. Shhhh, donât tell anyone else.
I recently read an article about the founding family of Wawa. Seems this familyâs ethics came out of a different book than the one Sam Walton read.
This is the link for Cedar Grill Café , a takeout restaurant located at a gas station in Del Mar, just north of San Diego, convenient to the I5. I was impressed with my sandwich, and his chicken looked amazing.
http://cedargrillcafe.com/Home_Page.php
Is Sam Walton et al spotless?
Donât typically stop at C-Stores, except when on the road, but Iâve had some excellent food at a random few. Specifically, when I was living and working in Utah, there was a place just up the road from work that made excellent fried chicken and JoJo potatoes. That was a quick lunch to eat in the park. Also as someone mentioned upthread, in Louisiana, Boudin. Around the Lafayette area, everyone seemed to know the C-stores had the best.
In my relative neck of the woods, corn dogs on the way to the Oregon coast. Much better than state fair type, IME, anyway.
Iâm 414 miles from the closest Wawa (the 2 locations just south of Scranton) . Iâll have to check one out next time I visit a state that has them!
I do miss Wawaâs from my college days in Philadelphia, even if the Iâm campus Wawaâs were kind of gross. I had lunch at Wawaâs at least 2-3 times a week when I was a student. I go to Philadelphia for work on occasion, and the new ones in center city are far nicer and more stuff too.
I guess the Boston area ones just arenât that impressive. I also find myself running into a local CVS or even Walgreens to pick up snacks more than a convenient store. My visiting Australian cousins were so confused why our pharmacies served as convenience stores too.
And jumping from the other thread, not only in Japan, but convenience stores in Taiwan and Hong Kong are equally fun with some good foodie finds if you ever visit those areas.
I buy the Wednesday New York Times for their food section at our local 7-11. Really nice people!
I hadnât been inside a Circle K here in suburban southwestern Ontario recently. Some of these updated Circle Ks have hot dogs and prepared hot sandwiches, which one used to only find at 7 11s in this part of Ontario.
I took a few photos of stuff I found fairly novel or fancy for a Canadian convenience store.
My small drip coffee was $1.67 CAD.
Circle K is the conglomerate that has gobbled up Macâs Milk, Winks, Couche Tard and Beckerâs.
Is Ghost Pepper Ranch a thing in the States? This Circle K had it available next to the ketchup and mustard. There seemed to be more space taken up for condiments and no space for the cream and sugar.
Definitely no space to put your coffee down to add the cream and sugar. Lol. The little creamers were in a container with little compartments, right next to the jalapenos and chopped raw onions.
In Montana we have Town Pump gas station/convenience stores that are monumentally large. And the coffee selection is both large and usually pretty fresh. To give you an idea of how large their properties are, the one nearest me is 450â by 450â which is around 4.5 acres. That is around 137m by 140m and it is around 18,500 mÂČ
But the convenience store I want to go to is the one down in the Southeast with the little beaver mascot (Buc-eeâs?) that is supposed to be so clean and full of different snack products. They have both Waffle House and Buc-eeâs down there, plus warmer winters.
Life is not fair.
Wow!
The tiny convenience store in small town Saskatchewan near my cousinâs place is also the townâs take-out pizzeria! itâs about 1/3 of the size of a standard US 7 11.
Do you have anything like a Montana equivalent to Waffle House? I was mostly seeking out Mom and Pop diners on my road trips though northern Montana, for lunch and pie.
I was stuck with whatever was near me when I spent a week at Big Sky, without a car. I took the bus to town to escape the resort midweek.
Nope, Ghost Pepper Ranch is not a thing here. And I wish we could get those Havoc Chaat snacks.
OTOH, we have Takis and other Mexican snacks galore in the convenience stores (at least in my part of California).
We do have Takis. The Mexican snack situation has really improved over the past 15 years.
Usually we are way behind the States for snacks. I think the recent immigration from South Asia, with a lot of young people in their 20s and 30s immigrating, is helping innovate our Kraft products and fast food LOL. Somebody is on the ball.
We do not have a regional diner in Montana. Until recently the culinary choices here were very limited. Now we have nearly as many breweries as we have diners, or so it seems. My part of Montana seems to have 4 growth industries. Beer breweries, storage bins, marijuana dispensaries and drive up coffee places.
But I just re-read my post about Town Pump and I realized I made it sound like the building is 137m by 140m. That is the size of the entire lot with the gas pumps and the building itself.
Same kind of thing here with lots of small craft breweries in southwestern Ontario. Quite a few new local cideries and coffee roasters, too.
I buy locally roasted coffee and maple syrup as I tool around small-town Ontario.