Across the country and around the world, convenience stores are the heartbeat of their communities. From independent stores to national chains, convenience retailers prove how deeply they care about their local customers by staying open during natural disasters, hosting fundraising events for charities, sponsoring children’s sports teams and donating time and money to local and national causes.

The average convenience shopper made 2.6 trips per week in 2023, with 48.4% of consumers saying they visit a c-store weekly and 28.4% coming once per day, according to the latest NACS Convenience Voices data. With customers frequenting stores this often, retailers have a unique opportunity to create and support their communities. “We can bring the community together in ways other retailers can’t,” said John Favreau, owner of the Warren General Store in Warren, Connecticut. “For example, individuals who might never have known each other previously have become friends by spending time at our store.”

Favreau often facilitates those meetings. “I’m constantly weaving people together who I think would enjoy one another’s company and running a convenience store allows me the opportunity to do that.”

Essential Connections

According to research from NACS, the average convenience store with fuel pulls in approximately 1,100 customers per day, providing a lot of opportunities for retailers to build community ties—which benefits both the store and its customers. “We live in the community as well as work here, so of course we want to make it a better place,” said Betty Foreman, general manager of Oak Barrel Café in Little Orleans, Maryland. “Why wouldn’t you lend a helping hand to those in need and give your customers an opportunity to impact their community?”

David Hopper, owner of Dia’s Market in Austin, Texas, said that building relationships with the community can be one of the hardest parts of running a local business.

“The bottom line is our stores rely on who is aware of us and what we offer,” said Hopper. “It’s the relationships that translate into loyal customers, because at the end of the day, we’re all selling essentially the same things. It’s the employees and our community connections that make customers choose to spend their dollars with us.”

Focus groups said, ‘I’m loyal to the people that work in the store.’

Tri Star Energy, a Tennessee-based retailer that operates Twice Daily convenience stores, White Bison coffee shops and Sudden Service c-stores, conducted research to learn more about customer loyalty, and found that consumers aren’t necessarily loyal to a particular store because of its brand or products. “Focus groups said, ‘I’m loyal to the people that work in the store.’ That was really impactful,” said Dawn Boulanger, vice president of marketing at Tri Star Energy. “What we do as a retail business is transactional, so it’s important to us to make that interaction in the store more than a transaction. We want to show we care about the communities we operate in, make it our mission to build relationships and help customers have an emotional connection with our store.”

While there are myriad ways convenience stores can deepen their community ties, each as different as the products and services they sell, this is how these four have supported their communities and become pillars of their neighborhoods.

Tri Star Energy

One cause Tri Star Energy cares about is supporting local first responders.

“We run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and we have a lot of third-shift folks that are in our stores who might stop by at night to pick up a cup of coffee. So it makes a lot of sense for us to support them—it’s an extension of what we do and what our offer is,” said Boulanger. The brand gives first responders in uniform or with a badge a free coffee or fountain drink year-round.

“It’s a nice way for us to thank them for their service and for being there to protect us,” she said.

In our work with convenience stores, we’ve noticed that the most successful ones are those who take community involvement very seriously.

This year, its White Bison coffee shops, which are mostly located inside Twice Daily convenience stores, hosted Coffee With a Cop for the fourth time across 17 locations in Tennessee and Alabama.

“The goal of the event is to bring community members together with local police departments to meet, discuss issues and learn more about each other,” said Boulanger. “We already have a lot of police that come to our store as customers and hang out between shifts or while waiting for calls, so we felt like this was a natural fit for us as a coffee shop.”

Boulanger said that employees have enjoyed being able to connect the community with law enforcement, and the relationship has also made both employees and customers feel safe.

“There are policemen in our stores that are regulars, and so it’s meaningful for everyone,” she said. “Coffee With a Cop is a national program, but many of our stores have expanded the idea to host quarterly or more regular events with local law enforcement. It means a lot to the community to have an opportunity to connect with police departments just to have conversations—there doesn’t need to be anything bad happening.”

The company also partners with Nashville nonprofit Box 55 Association, a volunteer-run team that deploys to emergency events and hands out beverages, coffee or food to first responders. Tri Star provides fuel for the organization’s two trucks and also donates bottled water, drinks and other supplies.

Warren General Store

Favreau has always taken community involvement very seriously. He sits on numerous local commissions and boards, and is the president of the Warren Historical Society and chair of the Inland Wetlands & Conservation Commission. “In all of these roles, I foster community by getting to know the residents,” he said.

Warren General Store is located on top of a mountain away from other commerce, which is why it’s so important for Favreau to be plugged into the community. “We’re a destination because everything else is 20 minutes away, so we have to be out in the community so people know we are here,” Favreau said.

While he’s generous with food and monetary donations, he also tries to think outside the usual charity boxes. When a local community garden gave a surplus of cucumbers and tomatoes to the food pantry, his kitchen came up with a simple cold gazpacho soup recipe for recipients to try. “We dropped off soup samples along with a printed copy of the recipe for those picking up boxes with the extra cucumbers and tomatoes,” Favreau said.

He also has his ear to the ground for individual needs in the community. His willingness to drop off a meal or help someone get a vehicle fixed means customers frequently update the store on those in need of a hand. “It’s not just me who makes these decisions—my employees also have free reign to decide to give help,” he said. “I like to empower my employees to mirror the actions I’m doing to help others.”

Dia’s Market

For Hopper, Dia’s Market’s mission statement informs his community outreach. “We have a very inclusive store—we want all people to feel welcome both as customers and employees,” he said. “We have several people on our staff from the minority or LGBT communities, and we’re very open to stocking products from minority- and LGBT-owned businesses.”

Dia’s supports the area’s public schools, which Hopper’s children attend. “We use these opportunities to assist the school and to raise awareness of our business,” he said. For example, he often donates meals for teacher training days or sends over lunch for school staff in lieu of monetary donations. “We always amp it up a bit by providing gluten-free and vegan options when requested, even though those cost us more,” he said.

Dia’s also provides personal assistance by allowing customers to put their purchases on a tab when they forget their wallets or phones, for example. “We’ve done that many times and most of the time, they return to pay for the items,” Hopper said. “Only a small percentage do not end up paying what they owe, so we continue to provide this service.”

Oak Barrel Café

From its inception, Oak Barrel Café has had deep ties to its local area. “It’s a very close-knit community, and from day one, we’ve partnered with the volunteer fire department as our core charity work,” said owner Dushant Sharma.

That includes annual events to benefit the department, such as appreciation dinners and giveaways. Through its fuel supplier, the store has a designated Spirit Pump, which donates 10 cents per gallon to the fire department during specific months of the year. The store also sponsors a school baseball team and hosts fundraisers for local churches.

In addition to these fundraising events, the store hosts a car show on the second Saturday of the month during the summer. “We get between 16 and 20 antique vehicles each Saturday, and our customers enjoy stopping by,” Sharma said.

Oak Barrel Café also cares for individuals in the community. When a volunteer firefighter was injured, the store dedicated 100% of one day’s foodservice sales to assist with his recovery. “We posted about it on our store Facebook page and raised $9,500 to help him and his family,” Sharma said. “It was great to see our community come together to help one of our own.”

At the end of the day, we’re all selling essentially the same things. It’s the employees and our community connections that make customers choose to spend their dollars with us.

At the end of the day, Sharma considers his role as the owner of an essential business to mean he takes care of the community. “Before we opened our store, no one in the community had adopted the fire department,” he said. “Once we started doing that, the whole community became more involved and started appreciating the work these volunteers do to keep our community safe.”

Building Connections

As these retailers pointed out, being involved in your community goes beyond giving money to charitable organizations. It means sharing in the lives of your customers. “In our work with convenience stores, we’ve noticed that the most successful ones are those who take community involvement very seriously,” said Sean McCaffrey, president and CEO of GSTV. “The retailer who is a strong participant in the community is one who has a loyal customer base and profitable bottom line.”

Retailers who have developed successful community ties follow these general precepts to build and keep those relationships strong and healthy.

Know your neighbors. Many convenience stores are neighborhood stores, which means those who shop there likely live nearby. “In the U.K., 57% of customers walk to a convenience store and 38% of colleagues walk to work, which means both the customers and the employee base are from the hyperlocal community,” said James Lowman, CEO of the Association of Convenience Stores in the U.K. “They know each other, which can easily translate into caring about one another.”

Empower staff. Both Hopper and Favreau give their staff the autonomy to do good by helping individual customers out when a need becomes known. “They understand my work ethic, my ethos or expectation, and that means offering customers support when needed,” Hopper said. Favreau added that his workers often receive tips directly from community members about who needs assistance.

Look for partners. There are many entities that are willing to assist with community events and partner directly with c-stores. For example, GSTV produces community ads for its c-store clients to help them boost donations for nonprofit causes or to highlight customer appreciation events.

“Whenever possible, we localize elements of our content to help retailers give back to their communities,” McCaffrey said. “There’s a benefit to consumers understanding more about your location than the price of coffee or the availability of food inside. By highlighting the ongoing relationship with their community through sponsorships or events, convenience retailers can bring it to the attention of customers who might want to be part of it, too.”

In addition to donations and fundraising campaigns with local partners, Tri Star Energy also gets community members and teammates involved in its initiatives. It partners with Nashville’s Salvation Army chapter in its Angel Tree Christmas toy drive and accepts donations at all locations. It also partners with a local food bank and collects donations in store from customers and employees; employees volunteer with the food bank to assemble food boxes and help those facing food insecurity.

Find your passion. Retailers said the best way to impact your community is to do what you feel passionate about. “There are tons of options to choose from when it comes to your time and money, so pick what gets you excited,” Hopper said.

For Tri Star, it was important to invest time and resources intentionally for select causes. “There are so many great organizations out there and people to help, but we prefer to do a lot with a few instead of trying to do a little with a lot,” said Boulanger. Therefore the company has developed a core group of long-term philanthropic partnerships, she said, and that “helps us have more meaningful relationships with folks.”

Tri Star partners with the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, and over the years has raised nearly $5 million for the hospital, said Boulanger. “If you go into any of our stores, you probably can’t not talk to somebody that’s been touched by that hospital, whether it is a customer, a teammate or a family member,” she said. “That means a lot to our community, and it gives our folks an opportunity to be more invested in the organization.”

Continuing Connections

The more convenience stores integrate fully into their communities, the more their communities will see them as a business that cares. “We belong to our community,” Sharma said. “We look forward to coming to work and meeting our customers because we’ve helped to create a space that welcomes everyone.”

For Favreau at Warren General Store, the satisfaction of the friendships that have developed over the years are wrapped up together with customer loyalty. Both are very rewarding, he said. “Because I’m in the middle of nowhere, the nearby town population might not have necessarily supported our store,” he said. “I’ve had to reach out and show them we care about more than our sales. We see being part of the community as what we need to do in order to survive and thrive.”