Can This Yassified Gas Station Become a GenZ Buc-ees?
Maggie's wants to bring back hospitality in C-stores
Today’s gas stations are notoriously known for being an overall unpleasant experience, whether it’s the dubious coffee and oddly duped unhealthy snacks or even the remote gas station with the bad vibes that is such a trope at this point there’s a reason it’s a popular setting for horror slashers, though the most terrifying thing about them has got to be an unkept, dirty bathroom. One thing that has not changed throughout time?
C-store gas stations are a great way to make money.
Did you know Buc’ees makes around $50-100M per store? The cultish c-store gas station born in Texas has now expanded to 51 stores across 8 states with more coming down the pipeline, it’s claim to fame? A beaver mascot and clean bathrooms. FEMSA’s OXXO became the largest C-store chain in Latin America, and makes up 40% of all FEMSA’s $10B annual revenue. Buc’ees has become a literal cult as Americans make their pilgrimages to fuel up with coveted merch, and 7/Eleven is looking to Japanese convis to help them better their performance in the US in the form of elevated food offerings at affordable prices. So it would come to no surprise that as Millennials and GenZ make up the appex consumer in 2020s, that we would eventually see the yassification of gas stations—meet Maggie’s.
Alex Canter is the 4th generation of Canter’s Deli in LA and formerly founded Nextbite, a virtual restaurant platform that raised more than $150M from the likes of Softbank and eventually sold to SBE Hospitality back in 2023. For his next act, Canter is looking to elevate a quintessential American experience, that is pumping gas at the C-store. Maggie’s recently announced a $2M pre-seed raise from the likes of Matchstick Ventures, Mucker Capital and Everywhere Ventures, as well a stellar board of advisors that includes the former CEO of 7/Eleven James Keyes and Meredith Sandland, Starbuck’s Chief Coffeehouse Development Officer.
With Maggie’s, Canter envisions bringing back convenience and hospitality that gas stations were once known for, but not in a faux-stalgia, retrofuturistic way, even if the branding says otherwise—instead he wants to focus on curating and elevating the experience, in what I could best describe as shoppy shop meets C-store meets…Erewhon? I confirmed with Canter that Maggie’s would be offering things like lattes on tap, pressed juices and ceremonial grade matcha, I’m not fucking with you, but it will also be a safe haven while you wait for your EV car to charge, or are in need of a healthy snack, though you will also be able to find the classics.
Canter will also focus on working directly with emerging brands, kind of like Foxtrot, though they are not looking to raise like them, instead focusing on their first location in LA and making sure the unit economics work before expanding throughout the city, if you’re wondering where, Canter said “Wherever there’s a Whole Foods, it’s where we’d like to be”—as he believes it’s a similar demographic. The company has enlisted the iconic branding agency, Dayjob to bring Maggie’s to life as a classic and timeless institution.
Canter said he seeks to do to gas stations what Equinox did to gyms and Blue Bottle did to coffee shops—will Maggie’s become an elevated Buc’ees for the next generation?
