Restaurant Brands Enter C-Stores as Foodservice Sales Rise
Opening a restaurant in a c-store is the new growth play, but it’s risky. With 38.9% of store profits coming from food, brands are racing in. Don’t mess it up.
Prajakta Sanjay Warwadkar 
The Gas Station Gold Rush: Why QSRs are Moving In
The math is getting hard to ignore. Convenience stores aren't just selling lukewarm hot dogs and lottery tickets anymore; they are turning into legitimate food destinations.
In 2025, foodservice accounted for 28.5% of the c-store industry’s massive $817.5 billion in total sales. That’s a jump from just 11.9% two decades ago. Even more jarring is the profit side: foodservice now drives 38.9% of in-store gross profit. Traditional fast-food chains are starting to feel the sting, with Technomic reporting that 15% of c-store visits are essentially stolen QSR occasions.
For a restaurant brand looking to grow, the temptation is obvious. You get built-in foot traffic, lower overhead, and a ready-made audience. But it’s not as simple as slapping a logo on a gas station wall.
The "Easy Growth" Trap
Look, everyone wants a shortcut to expansion. But David Bloom, the chief development officer at Capriotti’s, has seen how this goes wrong. He pointed to the collapse of Blimpie as the ultimate cautionary tale. They grew fast by shoving kiosks into every corner store they could find, but when those partnerships soured, the brand just evaporated. They went from over 2,000 locations in the early 2000s to barely 96 today.
The truth is, if you don't pick your partner perfectly, you aren't building a brand, you’re just diluting it.
How to Make the Hybrid Model Actually Work
If you’re going to do this, you can’t just cut and paste your standard menu. It’s a different environment. You aren't catering to someone sitting down for a lunch break; you’re feeding someone who is five minutes away from eating in a parked car.
1. Optimize for the Road
Hubert Paul, a partner at consultancy Simon-Kucher, puts it bluntly: "You’re optimizing for the car, not a seat in the dining room." That means ditching the complex menu items that get soggy by the time you reach the highway. Stick to portable, high-volume items like pizza, breakfast sandwiches, or high-end subs.
2. Guard the Food Safety
Here is where most people screw up. If you have a store clerk jumping from the cash register to the deep fryer, you are inviting a PR nightmare. Food safety standards tend to slide when the staff is overstretched.
3. Maintain Your Identity
Capriotti’s takes a hard line on this. They don't want to be a "counter in the back." They insist on:
- Separate entrances to keep the restaurant feel.
- Dedicated staff that don't double as gas station cashiers.
- Their own specialized equipment.
The Reality Check
Look, the idea that a c-store is just a smaller version of a standalone restaurant is a lie. It’s an entirely different beast. You’re sharing a roof with fuel pumps and tobacco displays, and the operational friction is real.
If you try to scale too fast without a pilot program, you’re just gambling. Most brands aren't ready for the level of discipline required to keep their identity intact while operating inside someone else's infrastructure.
My take? We’re going to see a lot of failures before we see the winners settle in. The brands that survive won't be the ones that chased the lowest build-out costs, but the ones that treated their c-store outposts with the same rigor they’d use for a flagship in a major city. If you can’t make it feel like a real restaurant, you’re better off staying out of the gas station business entirely.
Source: Hospitalitycareerprofile.com
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