Wawa’s Drexel store is testing a new screens-only buying experience with no shelved products

At Wawa’s newly renovated store at Drexel University, customers won’t be browsing the shelves anymore. All products must be ordered using a touch screen at the store or Wawa’s mobile app.

The new store format is in test mode, Wawa spokesperson Lori Bruce said, and the company will be gathering feedback from customers and employees.

“This will allow busy customers to place their orders and get their purchases faster than ever — fulfilled by friendly Wawa associates,” Bruce said.

Coffee will remain self-serve, Bruce noted, but everything else will be ordered digitally. Staffing levels at the store have not changed, she said.

The transformation, at 3300 Market St. in University City, took six days with a reopening on July 26.

Before the pandemic, the store did more food-service business than any other Wawa, according to the Philadelphia Business Journal. The Drexel store is one of three in University City.

It’s not unheard-of for Delaware County-born Wawa to experiment with store formats in Philadelphia. The company opened its smallest store in 2020 at 16th and Ranstead Streets, equipping it with a walk-up window.

Since then, however, Wawa has closed six stores in Center City and nearby neighborhoods. In discussing some of those closures, the company has pointed to “safety and security challenges and business factors.”

» READ MORE: A history of Wawa’s on-again, off-again relationship with Center City

Most recently, the Headhouse Square Wawa at 2nd and Lombard Streets shut down last month.

The others that closed were at 19th and Market Streets, 12th and Market Streets, 13th and Chestnut Streets, Ninth and South Streets, and Broad and Walnut Streets.

CEO Chris Gheysens said in January that Wawa plans to turn the 19th and Market location into a training center for tech workers, noting that the company dedicates about 30% of its overhead spending to technology.

He also said at the time that Wawa was working with a nonprofit partner that might use the 13th and Chestnut location, which has a catering facility in its basement.

Wawa’s presence in Center City has fluctuated over the past couple of decades. It closed several locations in the early 2000s, and more over the following few years.

Then, ahead of Pope Francis’ visit to Philadelphia for the World Meeting of Families in 2015, the company looked to add more downtown stores. The locations that had opened during that boom were among those that recently closed.

Wawa now has six stores within the area bordered by the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers and Spring Garden and South Street.