Wawa, the convenience-store chain blanketing the Eastern Seaboard and Midwest with more than 1,200 locations in 14 states, is also quietly expanding along the eastern Gulf Coast.
AL.com reported Monday that Wawa will open its seventh Alabama store in Loxley, between Mobile and the rapidly growing resort towns of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach. The company’s first store in the state opened in April 2024 in Fairhope, a town of 26,000 on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay; its westernmost U.S. stores (for now) are near Mobile Regional Airport.
A privately held company based in the far Philadelphia suburbs, Wawa was founded in 1803 as an iron foundry (no joke) and later branched into dairy processing, opening its first convenience store in 1964. Famous for its coffee and hoagies (that’s subs, to Texans), the chain’s Q score shot up exponentially after a 2021 SNL sketch spoofing the HBO police drama Mare of Easttown mentioned its hoagies…