Why are so many gas stations popping up in South Carolina? Owners think you need more.
Greg Parker loves getting this question.
“Do we really need another gas station?”
The owner of the Parker’s Kitchen chain wants so badly to end the stigma that comes with his business.
“Gas stations are what our grandfathers had, the place where you had your car worked on and refueled, and every transaction included checking the air in your tires and your antifreeze,” Parker said. “What we offer is far different.”
Parker, along with the owners of Refuel, Spinx and BlueWater Market, are changing the model with modern neighborhood stores that are brighter, cleaner and emphasize fresh food and where they say general merchandise revenue outweigh fuel sales nearly 4 to 1.
So yes, Parker believes we need more. A lot more.
But please, don’t call them gas stations, he requests. Call them convenience stores.
“The average person buys gas every seven to 10 days,” said Eddie Buck, owner of locally based BlueWater, which operates about 20 stores between Charleston and the Hilton Head area. “We’re trying to establish a reason you would come to us four days a week.”
While the cigarette, beer, gasoline model is still alive, that’s not the clientele these convenience retailers are after.
They want to be the place you grab a morning cup of coffee and sit outside and read the paper. The bathroom you bring your kids to on a road trip or use to change your baby’s diaper without grimacing. The one-stop where you buy your last-minute gallon of milk or your salad for lunch, fresh fried chicken for dinner.
Mark Jordan, a Mount Pleasant resident and the CEO of Refuel, purchased his first store in 1999. Today, the company has swelled to 237 locations across the Carolinas, Texas, Mississippi and Arkansas.
Fresh food is his second-biggest seller.
At Savannah-based Parker’s Kitchen, employees are dedicated to determining how much chicken to cook given a particular community and time of day, its founder said.
“We’re using AI tools to give us predictive analytics that will say to drop 28 chicken tenders in now because we know in the next 20 minutes, that’s how many are going to be eaten,” Parker said.
He also hired a director of real estate, Amanda Thompson, to oversee the acquisition of every brick-and-mortar location, analyzing the traffic, the investment, the demographics.
Parker has opened 25 stores since 2020, with plans to open more than 50 in the next three years.
Buck has two more BlueWater locations planned for this year, including the Summerville area near Cane Bay.
Stewart Spinks, owner of Greenville-based Spinx, has another five coming soon in Inman, Greenwood, Mount Pleasant, Boiling Springs and Johns Island.
Jordan expects eight Refuels to come online this year, having opened a Summerville location May 14, and 10 more to follow in 2025.
“The answer to most questions about why we do what we do ends in convenience,” Jordan said.
“We locate where we locate for the customer’s convenience, we sell the things we sell for the customers’ convenience.”
On the corner
These so-called c-stores typically take up the best corners to be the most accessible to customers, but also because the owners can afford it, said Justin Ross, vice president of Charleston commercial real estate firm Lee & Associates.
Smaller operators can’t pay for the corner spot at Ashley River Road and Sam Rittenberg Boulevard in Charleston or the end of Bees Ferry Road and Savannah Highway in Johns Island like Parker’s Kitchen can.
“Some of these hard corners have more value to the convenience store than they do to other users,” Ross said.
Plus, the more the bigger operators build, the more efficient they become at developing their sites quickly and efficiently. It’s formulaic, he said.