Wawa Day 2019: The top hoagie-selling store, and other fun facts

It’s Wawa Day today, which means the company is celebrating its 55th birthday by giving out free coffee all day. There’s a lot to celebrate today for all Wawa fans, especially those living near 16th and Chestnut, where the company just announced it will be opening a new store with a walk up window and uniforms made of recycled plastic.

So while you read up on company announcements and drink your free coffee, here’s a list of some of the chain’s top performing stores by category and geography.

Wawa’s hoagies are one of the items that sets the company apart from an average convenience store. Every year, the chain builds more than 125 million hoagies, the company said.

The Drexel campus store has claimed top sales for built-to-order hoagies. And that store’s success may be why the company officially announced it was opening an 8,760 square-foot store at 3300 Market Street at last year’s Wawa Day. If all these hoagies were laid out end to end, it would total 188,000 feet, the company said, adding that it would be equivalent to more than 160 Comcast Technology Center towers, which reaches 1,121 feet.

>>READ MORE: Comcast’s new skyscraper syncs its architecture to the rhythms of Philadelphia

Philadelphians leave the city in droves every summer and head to the Jersey shore, where a certain Wawa in Margate, N.J., has been dubbed “Club Wa.” Teens from the city and its surrounding suburbs spend their rowdy days on the Washington Ave., beach by Lucy the Elephant, before converging at the town’s Wawa at night. The crowds became so bad that Margate police needed to assign officers just to that Wawa.

>>READ MORE: Margate police: We kept the lid on Club Wa this year

Despite the popularity, this Wawa isn’t the top seller. That summer sales award goes to the Wildwood Wawa located at 418 West Rio Grande Ave., Wildwood N.J.

Wawa is undergoing a massive expansion, with a record 63 new stores this year and the remodeling of 59 others. Part of this expansion, is the chain’s presence in Florida, where it has 167 stores. The 840-store chain also has a presence in D.C., Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia.

While there are currently more Wawas in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, 251 and 236, respectively, the company expects Florida to surpass each state by the end of 2021.

>>READ MORE: As Wawa expands, some Floridians - and one Philly woman - are dubious

So while Floridians enjoy the heat, the company’s frozen beverage sales are benefiting, with the Sunshine state leading the chain’s sales. The store with the top smoothing sales is in Margate, Fla., at 2000 N. State Road 7 Margate, Fla.

The convenience store chain brews more than 225 million cups of coffee a year, so it’s hard to imagine where the chain sells the most coffee. The Bridgeton, N.J., Wawa takes this honor, located at 1090 State Highway 77, Bridgeton N.J.

Though Wawa continues to invest in its food services, the chain is also a gas station in more than 600 of its locations. The store with the top fuel sales is in Chesapeake, Va., located at 101 Hillcrest Pkwy Chesapeake, Va.

Products from the Nottingham, Pa.-based and family-owned potato chip company, Herr Foods Inc., line shelves in Wawa locations. The small business began when James Stauffer Herr, CEO Ed Herr’s father, bought a Lancaster-based potato chip company for $1,750 in 1946. He and his wife would deliver chips by leaving a three-pound tin full of chips on doorsteps. If it was empty with some money in it weeks later, they brought more.

That humble beginning, where they could make about 20 pounds of chips an hour, has turned into a $300 million company making five or six tons of chips every hour.

>>READ MORE: Herr’s potato chips’ future leader talks nepotism, shares advice for other family businesses

Today, about 62 percent of the company’s business is from the Mid-Atlantic region, which includes Philadelphia. So it is no surprise, that the Wawa selling the most Herr’s chips is at Broad and Walnut, one of the many Philly locations.

Another Philadelphia favorite, Tastykakes, can also be found throughout Wawa stores. Tasty Baking Co., was founded in 1914 in Philadelphia, and sold in 2011 to Thomasville Ga., -based Flower Foods Inc., to avoid bankruptcy.

The company’s Navy Yard bakery is the site of the company’s signature items, like butterscotch krimpets, and testing new flavors like lemon, pumpkin spice and chocolate Kreamie Juniors.

So much like Herr’s chips, it is no surprise that items from this iconic Philadelphia brand do especially well at a Philly Wawa, specifically the Bartram Avenue store located at 8220 West Bartram Ave. Philadelphia, Pa.

And the winners of the top food and beverage sales overall go to the stores at:

1. Drexel, also home to the Dragons and the top built-to-order hoagies.

2. Bartram Ave., also bringing in the top Tastycake sales.

3. An Allentown Wawa located at 7572 Schantz Rd. Allentown, Pa., the stores first mention in the rankings. Wawa’s store locater shows eight stores within 10 miles of zip code 18106.