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Wawa is Coming to D.C. and That's a Glorious Thing

What I learned at Wawa's Newseum event

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June 24, 2017

Washington, D.C., is about to become a better place. That's because Wawa is finally coming to town.

At a Newseum event I attended last week, Wawa announced its first location in the city will be at 1111 19th Street Northwest, and is scheduled to open in December. It sounds like it is going to be amazing. It will be the largest Wawa in history, and is set to feature the indoor and outdoor seating that many of us have long wanted in our Wawas. There is even going to be a "Wild Goose Café."

From there, Wawa plans to build as many as 50 new stores in the D.C. metro area.

For anyone who doesn't know, Wawa is the world's greatest convenience store/deli/dairy/granter of your wildest dreams. They make the best hoagies and teas and bagel sandwiches and coffee and soft pretzels and milk and club sandwiches and meatball subs, and I could literally go on and on and on and on. The bottom line is every sane person agrees that Wawa is amazing.

The data confirm that: During the event, Wawa said everywhere they have stores they've earned a greater share of the coffee market than anybody—including Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts—and a greater share of the sandwich market than anybody—including Subway. Wawa is bigger than you might realize too. They currently have 757 stores across 6 states which employ 30,000 people and generate 9 freaking billion dollars in revenue. That means Wawa brings in more revenue than the gross domestic product of at least 54 countries.

This is even more impressive when you learn that 41 percent of Wawa is actually owned by those 30,000 employees, and the rest of it is family owned. Mostly by the Wood family. A family I—somebody who grew up not far from Wawa, Pa.—have a history with. In high school, I met Dave Wood through Young Life and became good friends with him.

I have fond memories of driving down the 322 bypass in Dave's late 90s red Ford Mustang with the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack blaring—being super cool dudes, in other words. I remember watching The Ring for the first time in his basement and being scared out of my mind. His family was incredibly nice, and his house always seemed to be stocked like a Wawa. I was always jealous of the sweet Wawa sweatshirts and blankets he and his sister had that you couldn't buy retail. Anyway, he was a good guy. We're still friends on Facebook but haven't talked in a while. It looks like he's a high school teacher out west now which is cool but I bet he misses Wawa.

Wawa is such a staple of life in the places where, like in southeastern Pennsylvania, it's been part of the fabric for decades. It's not so much that people love Wawa—I mean, they do—but it's more that they can't imagine life without it. This only became clear to me when I moved out to Harrisburg for college. Sure, there was Sheetz, and that was great, but there was just no replacing Wawa.

Other people at Messiah College clearly felt the same yearning for a delicious Italian Shorti and refreshing peach tea too. One of the most popular Facebook groups on campus, which counted me as a member, was Wawa For President. Maybe it doesn't make any logical sense, but I would absolutely still vote for Wawa for president.

Since my time at Messiah I've broken a number of news stories that have garnered national attention. But do you know what's garnered the most recognition from people back home, especially from people I hadn't talked to in years?

The fact that I'm mentioned in this Buzzfeed piece about how great Wawa is. And, honestly, I'm ok with that.

I got to meet Dave's uncle, Rich Wood, at the Newseum event, which was nice. He's Wawa's director of government relations. I ordered a classic meatball sub from one of the ordering screens they had on display, printed out the order ticket, and tried to have him fill it for me. We both laughed, but I was only kind of joking.

In fact, the Newseum event left me feeling a bit betrayed. When I first heard there was going to be a Wawa event announcing the company's plans to expand into the city I was naturally excited about the prospect of eventually having a Wawa down the street from my home. I was more excited, however, at the prospect of immediately getting some free Wawa food at the press event they were having.

Sadly, there was no Wawa food at the Wawa press event. Politics, ironically, got in the way. It seems that in order to have the event at the Newseum, Wawa had to use their caterers and serve the Newseum's disappointing non-Wawa food.

I did get some Wawa coffee and a bit of Wawa swag so it certainly wasn't all bad, though.

The reaction to the news of Wawa's pending invasion of the D.C. metro area was overwhelmingly positive. My own Twitter mentions were filled with excited DCers of every conceivable political stripe. They even donated $25,000 to the USO at their Newseum event, bolstering their credibility and putting their small, sad critics further to shame.

Before the Newseum event ended I managed to get some face time with one of the Wawa executives in charge of developing the new stores. I casually (okay, maybe aggressively) mentioned that the new office buildings across from Free Beacon HQ in Rosslyn, Va., would make an ideal location for a Wawa. He said they hadn't looked closely at the area yet but that it actually sounded like a good idea. So, in other words, if we do get a Wawa in Rosslyn you can all thank me.

I'll certainly be thankful if that happens since I won't have to drive 30 minutes down to Woodbridge, Va., every weekend to get my fix anymore.

Published under: Feature