Genevieve Babineau: Welcome to The Catering
Feed: The Catering Growth Podcast, a show
about growing your catering business and restaurant
industry trends, powered by ezCater.
Hi, everyone.
Welcome to the podcast.
I’m here today with Frank Beard from GasBuddy.
I am so pumped—no pun intended—to have
Frank here today to talk about his complete
obsession with the convenience store (c-store)
industry.
Frank, thank you so much for joining me today.
Frank Beard: Yeah.
Thanks for having me on the podcast.
Genevieve Babineau: So, Frank, before we dig
in today, I feel like it’s always good to
talk about some really cool trending news.
A lot of people have been buzzing about the
fact that Wawa is now offering catering at
all of its locations.
And I grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
So I totally understand what a way of life
Wawa is.
And I can imagine why a lot of people want
to take that off-premises.
But what’s your take on this?
Frank Beard: I mean it makes sense to me.
Wawa is one of those stores that you drive
out of the way to visit.
Genevieve Babineau: Yeah.
Frank Beard: You know, it’s an interesting
time for the industry because you really have
to differentiate yourself.
I mean LastMile Retail hasn’t had a lot
of competition over the years, but it’s
here now and it’s really good.
I mean I can open an app like goPuff if I’m
in a town that has goPuff.
And I’ve done this.
They’ll bring whatever you want to your
door in like 20 minutes.
Genevieve Babineau: Right.
Frank Beard: They’re so fast.
They give you a loading bar like Domino’s
Pizza does, even.
Genevieve Babineau: While you’re hanging
out watching a TV show.
Frank Beard: Yeah and you can spend $6—it’s
like $5.95—to join the fam—their loyalty
program or whatever.
And they’ll knock out delivery fees for
basically $6 a month.
So if you’re someone who just discovered
Stranger Things and you don’t want to leave
your couch for maybe the next two weeks, well,
they’ll bring it to you.
So for convenience stores, you really have
to differentiate yourself.
And Wawa has done that through food service
as good as anybody has.
And so I mean, catering is only natural and
the food’s great.
Genevieve Babineau: I think, also, they’ve
built this really strong following.
I met one of the leaders at Wawa and I kind
of fangirled a little bit.
And I said, “I’m a really big fan of your
work.”
And he said, “Let me guess, you’re from
Pennsylvania.”
Because it’s like it is!
It was something that you know—people almost
felt like they—it was sacrilegious to go
to a Starbucks instead of going to get Wawa’s
coffee.
Frank Beard: Yeah.
There was an article that came out last year
that said they sell 200 million cups of coffee
a year and the coffee is great.
They actually sell single-use cups K-Cups.
I have a collection of K-Cups from all the
c-store brands.
Genevieve Babineau: Of course you do.
Frank Beard: I’ll take them home and make
it.
It’s kind of fun to compare them, but yeah.
I mean they sell their coffee to take home
and make.
People love going there.
Genevieve Babineau: Do you see this being
a really pervasive trend in the c-store industry?
That a lot of operators are seeing this opportunity
not just to differentiate themselves inside
the four walls, but to start expanding outside
the four walls with something like catering?
Frank Beard: Yeah, it’s a challenge because
I think some brands are hesitant to remove
the customer from the experience they’ve
created in the store.
But catering is a huge opportunity.
It’s like we have some operators in this
industry that have absolutely incredible food
service.
And it’s just one more way to get that food
to customers.
There’s actually a lot of independents who’ve
developed really amazing food service programs,
who have experimented with catering as well
and have had some success with it.
So I think it’s only natural now that you’re
seeing these larger brands like Wawa see the
opportunity.
And they have their food service at the point
where they can actually do real catering.
It’s cater-worthy, if that’s a thing.
It’s that kind of food.
Genevieve Babineau: It is now.
You heard it here first, folks.
So, you know, to go from your 30-day challenge
to now being able to, you know, just dive
into the world of c-stores every single day.
How many c-stores do you think you’ve been
to in your life?
Frank Beard: Oh, gosh, it’s been thousands
probably, at this point.
I counted for a little while and then I just
stopped.
Genevieve Babineau: Yeah.
Frank Beard: Yeah.
So I got into this through like a very nontraditional
way.
Started through this thing called “30 Days
of Gas Station Food.”
And what that really was, is—you know, I’d
gone through a massive weight loss experience
and any time you do that you just kind of
naturally get tuned into the whole discussion
about healthy living.
It just ends up happening.
And I kept hearing this theme that eating
on the go is like part of the so-called problem.
And I’m like, well that’s not true.
Because at the time I was traveling basically
five days a week.
I got to do something to challenge this.
And well, I thought it would be something
simple like I’d eat at gas stations for
a week.
And I had a lot of time to think about this
because I was driving to Kansas City from
Des Moines.
About five minutes into the drive though,
it just clicked.
I was like, you know what?
Let’s make this really extreme.
Let’s do gas stations for an entire month
and then let’s document the entire thing.
I mean that sounds crazy, right?
Genevieve Babineau: And for people who don’t
know much about GasBuddy, tell us a little
bit about GasBuddy.
Frank Beard: So GasBuddy is really interesting.
Actually, this is a very fragmented industry.
It’s probably like the biggest $650 billion
industry that no one knows anything about.
Genevieve Babineau: Amen.
Frank Beard: And GasBuddy is unique in that
we tied together a fragmented industry.
I mean about two-thirds of the industry are
single-store owner-operated [businesses].
Meaning it’s a person who owns one convenience
store.
But then your major brands tend to be regional
as well.
So it’s really hard to tie together this
fragmented industry and GasBuddy is essentially
the platform that does that.
So we have about 12 million active monthly
users, 80 million downloads.
I think we were rated—this study came out
and said we’re the seventh most positively
reviewed app on the [iPhone] App Store, which
is pretty impressive.
Genevieve Babineau: That’s pretty impressive.
Frank Beard: Yes, that’s a big deal.
It’s a very big deal.
And so people essentially use our app to find
a place to go.
It’s their perfect pit stop, is what we
like to call it.
And so for some, that’s about checking gas
prices to get the best deal.
For others, that’s about looking for something
else.
You can rate and review convenience stores.
You can evaluate what’s on the next route.
We even have QSRs [quick service restaurants]
coming to us now to advertise on our app because
they’re trying to get our app users to come
to their stores instead of going to eat at
a convenience store.
So it’s a pretty cool feature.
Genevieve Babineau: And it seems pretty innovative
for those restaurant operators and brands
to be thinking about what is that share and
see that c-stores are pretty legitimate competitors.
But also learn some lessons from that industry.
A lot of my former colleagues at California
Pizza Kitchen all lived in Texas.
And so I have to tell you that, you know,
as a New Englander and a kind of Northerner
or a Yankee, as they would call me, I’ve
always thought of convenience stores as somewhere
where I go in, I get my gas, I maybe go grab
a Dasani and some gum, but that’s about
it for me up here.
That’s my experience.
Until I went to a Buc-ee’s.
And Buc-ee’s in Texas changed absolutely
everything for me.
So whether it’s a Wawa or a Buc-ee’s,
can you talk about these gas stations that
really are so much more than a gas station
and that experience that they’re offering
for their customers?
Frank Beard: I mean I think the chapstick
I used a second ago that I pulled out of my
pocket.
I’m like, “Oh that has a Buc-ee’s logo
on it.”
Genevieve Babineau: And your PopSocket [a
stick-on phone grip] on your phone right now.
Frank Beard: You know, honestly, the PopSocket.
So for anyone listening: I have a PopSocket
on the back of my phone that has the Buc-ee’s
logo.
And it’s pretty worn down.
But I’ve got another one ready to put on
there when it expires.
And the thing is, it’s honestly a conversation
starter about the power of branding and that’s
half the reason I have it on there.
The other half being Buc-ee’s is awesome.
But it’s just, it’s more than a gas station.
It’s more than a convenience store.
They make retail fun.
And people forget that retail should be fun.
It should be an experience when you go somewhere.
And that gets misconstrued a lot, where people
think you have to do all this just silly stuff.
But it’s just about making—it’s creating
a place that a person will drive out of their
way to visit.
Like if you can’t answer why would someone
drive out of the way to visit my store then
you should probably start thinking about that
right now because your competitors probably
are.
And Buc-ee’s is a great example.
The food is amazing, the merchandise is hilarious.
The bathrooms are just huge.
I mean you’ll see rows and rows of urinals
and stalls.
I’m like, “How could there ever be that
many people who honestly need that?”
Of course, I’m sure there are days when
they do, but I mean they put artwork in the
bathrooms.
It’s insane.
Genevieve Babineau: I just never knew that
I could be so interested to see an entire
wall of dried meat.
That was something that I never imagined.
Or that I could go and see 25 different types
of—we’re talking about slap-your-mama—about
25 different types of, you know, meat rubs
and hot sauce and a full hot bar.
Like something that would put Whole Foods
to shame.
I mean it really is a really special type
of place.
Frank Beard: Their merchandising strategy
is so hilarious because it’s like, alright,
instead of putting a few things here, let’s
build a wall of meat and then on top of that
let’s put a row of stuffed animals of the
Buc-ee’s Beaver.
And let’s not put two or three of them,
let’s put like 100 of them and line the
entire wall.
It’s just that everything is like bigger,
louder.
But what people forget: They succeed so well
at just having a clean, friendly, just a nice
store.
The shelves are always faced.
If there are scuffs on the walls, they sure
seem to be fixed quickly.
Like nothing feels old or dated or dirty ever
in that store.
It’s Retail 101, but they succeed at it
and they do it with a store that [spans] 65,000
square feet.
Genevieve Babineau: And I think one of the
things that I really, early on, fell in love
with restaurant branding and hospitality is
when you can create an emotional, visceral
reaction.
And they feel like they belong to that brand.
Frank Beard: Yeah, definitely.
And that’s how—and Buc-ee’s does that
probably better than anyone I’ve ever seen.
It’s just when you, when you see that logo
you get excited.
And their highway advertising is the best.
You’ve seen those billboards, right?
Genevieve Babineau: Yup.
Frank Beard: I mean if anyone hasn’t seen
those billboards, they’ll put these massive
billboards up that will say things like, “Your
throne awaits.”
Talking about the restrooms or the top two
reasons to visit Buc-ee’s or the number
one and number two.
Or it’ll just say like, “Beavers.”
And that’s all it says.
It just says, “Beavers.”
So there is a photo someone shared on Instagram,
where this other—I think it’s a truck
stop that had put up a billboard saying, “Clean
restrooms in four miles.”
Buc-ee’s put a billboard above it, that
said, “You can hold it for 20 miles.”
And when you see that you smile.
But it’s fun.
They just, they built an amazing brand.
Sheetz has done a good job, too.
I would tell anybody to follow Sheetz on Twitter
and just watch how they interact with their
customers.
It’s unbelievable.
And you know this is a time when everyone’s
talking about loyalty programs and rewards
programs.
I mean every retailer has got them.
Every store you go to tries to hit you up
with one of these.
Just another app to download, you know, because
we already have our core apps we use.
And going to have a really compelling reason
to download something on your phone at this
point.
And yeah, as a consumer, I’m really fatigued
by these things.
But Sheetz, they don’t say, “Oh, we have
loyal customers.”
No.
We have Sheetz freaks.
It’s part of this whole strategy to just
like make this amazing, cool brand.
It’s almost like this club that you’re
a part of.
And their customers, I mean look at them on
Twitter, they go on and promote the brand
for Sheetz.
Genevieve Babineau: Sure, and I think, again,
so many restaurant brands are trying to think
about how to create community.
That’s always such a buzzword.
How do you create a community inside the four
walls?
How do you engage with the external community
and drive traffic back inside the four walls?
But now we’re looking at things like virtual
community and I know that Sheetz is a brand
that really masters that digital community.
Frank Beard: Yeah.
And there are some restaurants that have done
a pretty good job at this, too.
Isn’t it Denny’s that has a really funny
Twitter account now?
I’ll be honest, I don’t know if it necessarily
makes me want to eat there more, but I sure
love the Twitter account.
I mean if anything it creates a positive brand
impression.
Genevieve Babineau: Well, we’re talking
about it right now so they’re doing something
right.
Frank Beard: But it’s just, you know, some
of the QSRs.
You know, we’ve all had that experience
where we go in a store, you see some tables
aren’t wiped down, maybe the people behind
the counter just clearly don’t want to be
there, which reflects poorly on the brand.
And it’s hard to get excited about being
there as well when the employees aren’t
even excited to be there.
And it’s really hard to turn people into
brand evangelists at that point when that’s
what they get at your store.
But then you go into a store like Sheetz and
you get great customer service.
The employees are so—they sure seem thrilled
to be there when every time I visited.
Genevieve Babineau: That’s because they
hear Frank Beard was coming.
Frank Beard: But they’re—it’s just a
whole different experience.
I mean a good example of this as you go in
a Kwik Trip with a “K” or a “KT.”
They are in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Northern
Iowa.
I don’t know how they do this, but it seems
like every store has a small-town-community
feel.
Every single one of them.
It’s like they find that one person who
might volunteer in a church kitchen on a Sunday
afternoon and serve up, you know, food to
people who stay afterward.
It’s that old lady who knows everyone in
town, knows all their business—is like the
center of all the gossip.
And they find that person and they hire her
and they have her giving samples out at the
store.
Genevieve Babineau: Sure.
Frank Beard: It’s amazing that they’re
so good at this.
And I went to a store and I maybe didn’t
want to buy glazed doughnuts.
But I sure wanted to try a sample of a glazed
doughnut.
So this lady comes up and says, “Would you
like a sample?”
Yeah, I’ll take one of those and that—I
mean their baked goods are off the charts.
They’re amazing.
And she could see it on my face.
And she looks at me and winks and she goes,
“You need another one of those?”
Genevieve Babineau: No better salesperson
out there than that.
Frank Beard: She didn’t tell me where they’re
located, what the price is.
You know those awkward conversations that
people who are bad at samples tend to do.
She just wanted me to try a sample and be
happy.
Genevieve Babineau: Yeah.
Frank Beard: And you know what.
That’ll bring you back to a store.
Genevieve Babineau: Absolutely.
But who is going to say no to that grandma?
Frank Beard: But it’s easy to get excited
about that brand.
Genevieve Babineau: Yeah, for sure.
So, again, you know, thinking of a woman who
is really entrenched in the community—that
kind of, that church lady I’m thinking of,
like, the SNL character, you know, handing
out this taste of doughnuts—again, not what
a lot of people think of when they think of
a convenience store.
So what percentage of people are going to
a gas station or a convenience store just
to get fuel versus, you know, how often are
people going in and engaging with that retail
side of the business?
Frank Beard: Yeah, I mean there are a lot
of stats that have come out on the conversion
rate from the fuel forecourt to the store.
A lot of them tend to come in around 50 percent.
I’ve seen 35 percent drive away after refueling.
I’ve seen 50.
I’ve seen as high as 70.
Honestly, it’s really going to vary on the
particular retailer.
But let’s just say for the sake of argument
that it’s half of the customers who drive
away after refueling.
For retailers, it’s a big challenge to invite
them back into the store and they have to
really overcome a lot of challenges with this
because, let’s be honest, here’s a reason
why the stereotype of a dirty gas station
exists.
Genevieve Babineau: Yeah.
Frank Beard: You know, a friend of mine likes
to.
A friend of mine at a cleaning company likes
to describe the past number of decades as
the Dark Ages of restrooms.
And we finally have gotten out of the Dark
Ages of restrooms and I think we have.
But there’s a very real reason why that
stereotype exists and still does today.
Genevieve Babineau: I remember reading a New
Yorker article that talked about 82 percent
of women will not go back into a place of
business if the bathroom is dirty.
It’s that implication of—if you’re not
taking care of the bathroom, what does the
back of house look like?
Frank Beard: Oh, exactly.
And you know, we did the survey at GasBuddy
that I put together.
What’s cool is like we can run a survey
through our app and we’ll get 20 thousand
responses in a few days.
And these are 100 percent driver audience,
so it’s the people you want to survey anyway
about these things.
And it’s really cool.
So the survey.
I filtered everyone into, you know—how often
do you visit a convenience store?
So I took the people who are very frequent
visitors and then asked them, “Well, how
do you evaluate a store when you’re filling
up your car?
How do you decide what factors influence whether
or not you go inside?”
And the number one reason was just the curb
appeal of the store.
It’s the appearance of it because people
don’t really want to visit a dirty place.
And when they have the choice to not visit
one, they’re not going to visit the dirty
store.
And when you’re getting into food service,
you’re right that this makes a big difference
because if you go into a restroom that’s
filthy or if you go to a table that’s not
wiped down, that reflects poorly on everything
about that store including the food.
Genevieve Babineau: It seems, though, like
the c-stores that are doing a really phenomenal
job with food service are seeing immense growth
and a lot of that is in part due to their
attention to detail, understanding the importance
of high integrity with food quality.
Who are those brands that you see really thinking
about food service in a different way?
Frank Beard: Yeah.
There’s definitely some that have an interesting
approach.
So you know here’s something interesting.
When you say “thinking about it in a different
way”—what was it?
A couple of years ago, McDonald’s put touch
screens in.
Genevieve Babineau: Right.
Frank Beard: And suddenly everybody wanted
to talk about.
Genevieve Babineau: And everyone was stressed
about it.
Frank Beard: Yeah, I mean it’s cool.
They have some nice touch screens.
I’ve used them, but I guess I was sitting
here thinking, “Has anyone not been—have
these people not been to a convenience store
that are writing these articles?”
Genevieve Babineau: Right.
Frank Beard: Wawa—I think it was in 2002
that they started doing touch screens.
I mean there were operators doing this for
like 10 years before McDonald’s did.
And so that was definitely thinking differently
about food service because it was not a common
thing early on.
But I mean now it makes sense.
Why not just have a touch screen where I can
tell them exactly what I want and more importantly
what I don’t want?
Maybe I don’t want a certain ingredient.
Maybe you have a picky kid with you who doesn’t
want green things on his sandwich.
And so that ability to customize your food.
C-stores are really early adopters so you
see a couple of brands that are doing some
neat things right now.
Twice Daily is a great example.
If you’re in Nashville, go to a Twice Daily.
Their newer stores that have their coffee
brand inside, they—rather than saying “Twice
Daily coffee,” they created “White Bison
coffee,” which kind of has that halo effect.
It looks at the coffee shop and it is a coffee
shop.
I walked into a store that had a full third-wave
coffee program.
They’re doing single-origin pour-over coffee.
Like that was amazing.
Genevieve Babineau: Just the total foodie
experience.
Frank Beard: Yeah.
They had the beans measured out into these
little glass vials with cork stoppers on them
and weighed out properly.
So then they pull one of those out, they grind
it up.
They had this pour-over machine that’s built
into the counter that dispenses a perfect
temperature of water.
And I mean, gosh, I think I paid less than
four dollars for that.
It put anything to shame that I’ve had from
a coffee shop in the last couple of years.
There was not a single negative aspect about
that coffee when I took a sip and there was
such a flavor complexity behind it.
It was really impressive.
And like I’m doing this while looking out
the window at a Shell [gas station] canopy
and the cool thing is, I ran a speed test
on their free Wi-Fi.
It was 75 megabits-per-second downloads.
That’s better than I’ve seen from coffee
chains, where I’m hitting 15, maybe 20,
maybe, maybe less.
Especially if everyone writing the next Great
American Novel moves into the store and starts
slowing down the Wi-Fi network.
So, you know, the laptop brigade shows up,
but it was amazing.
And their sandwiches were off the charts.
So that’s a great operator.
Another one I would say is really good—these
guys don’t get a lot of attention, PANNA
down in Florida.
PANNA New Latino Food.
Absolutely incredible food.
If you want Venezuelan or Colombian food,
like, that’s where you go.
Genevieve Babineau: Alright, sign me up.
Frank Beard: They started in a convenience
store near Miami and they’ve since created
their own QSR locations or I think they’re
in another convenience store, too.
So it’s kind of a mix between c-stores and
QSRs.
But they have a huge hot box for your grab-and-go.
But what’s impressive is their open grill
that they have.
Anything you want on that menu, it’s just
gonna be amazing.
It’s all made fresh right there.
They do catering, too, which maybe they should
be talking to ezCater about this.
So they’re a good operator that doesn’t
get a lot of attention.
Alright, let’s just mention the elephant
in the room.
Casey’s General Stores.
Like that’s where I’m from, Des Moines,
Iowa.
I’ve grown up on Casey’s pizza.
It’s like the Eighth Wonder of the World.
That sausage breakfast pizza is astonishingly
good.
Genevieve Babineau: And meanwhile we’re
seeing this immense demand from the catering
customer—from these really high-profile
whales who are ordering on a regular basis
for everything from, you know, that office
party to executive meetings to client meetings—that
breakfast is such a high opportunity for food
service operators to start to fulfill that
need.
So again, now you’re thinking about c-stores
coming in for that share of stomach.
How are these c-stores that are really diving
into catering going to change the landscape
of restaurant catering?
Frank Beard: You know, it’d be interesting
because let’s say you’re at an office
and you walked into a conference room and
you know those kinds of, like, coffee catering—I
don’t know how to describe those big containers
that you pour out.
Genevieve Babineau: Right.
Yup.
Frank Beard: Yeah.
Imagine if they were all black containers—are
like, kind of like a brown, you know, like
a butcher paper or whatever that is.
And it just has a big Kwik Trip logo on the
side, a “QT” logo.
Nobody would bat an eye at that and think
that that’s going to be bad.
They’d probably be excited that it’s there.
And that’s the thing—is, these brands
people trust, these brands, like, they’re
already associated with quality.
So suddenly if they start doing catering,
that’s really just going to crowd out some
of the restaurants that are doing it too.
Genevieve Babineau: Well, I feel like from
the second we both bonded over Buc-ee’s,
I knew it was going to be a great conversation.
So I hope you all enjoyed and learned a little
bit more about how much commonality there
is between the c-store and the restaurant
world.
Frank Beard: Yeah, this has been great.
Thanks for having me on the podcast.
