It’s a Wawa World; We Just Eat In It. The quote above is the opening to a great read in Philadelphia Magazine’s August issue from Don Steinberg about how the local hoagie, gas and coffee joint is taking over the world, developing the type of consumer loyalty that most brands would pay big money for. Some classic (or Shorti, depending on your hunger level) Wawa stats from the story:

• It’s now the number eight seller of cups of coffee in the entire U.S., and sells one of every five cups in the region
• Wawa sells 80 million hoagies a year
• It’s third in the Delaware Valley in terms of overall grocery sales (behind ShopRite and Acme)
• Wawa’s annual per-store average is $5 million (excluding gas sales)
• It is the country’s 50th largest private company

The stats go on and on, so just read the story. But another great takeaway is from Wharton marketing professor Stephen Hoch, who says of the store’s evolution from a convenience store to a one-stop shop: ““Wawa has become a fast-food restaurant with a gas station.”

A quick Facebook search for Wawa turns up multiple fan pages of those who love the chain and Philly transplants who miss it. The branded page itself has over 760,000 fans. It remains only in five states for now (PA, NJ, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia), and selfishly we’d like to keep it that way.

As The20’s @dhm said this morning about the business that we all love, “”Wawa is part of our culture. It’s part of our way of life.”

-LD

[Philadelphia Magazine, Facebook, @dhm]