I’ve never met a Wawa I didn’t like - until I met ‘robot Wawa’

As I searched the touch screen for Herr’s Cheese Curls at Wawa’s new all-digital test store in University City, I was momentarily taken out of the experience when a customer associate behind the food counter yelled: “Order number 124, Diet Dr. Pepper.”

That was it. No “Italian Shorti” or “classic meatball hoagie” followed. Someone just wanted a Diet Dr Pepper, but to get it, they had to place their order at a touch screen, pay their slip at one counter, and wait for someone to call their number at another counter and hand it to them.

“That’s a bit absurd,” I thought to myself, as I turned back to the touch screen. “Now where are these dang cheesy poofs?”

I tried the “Chips & Salty Snacks” menu and when I didn’t find them there, I searched in “Crackers, Cookies, other” to no avail. In a desperate last-ditch effort, I tried the “Energy & Meat” category but came up empty-handed there too.

This new multiverse Wawa either didn’t have Herr’s Cheese Curls, or made them too difficult to find. My fingers could have been dusted in a fine orange powder that day, but instead, remained relatively clean and ready to write this review.

This was the most un-Wawa Wawa I’ve ever been to.

It’s the Stepford Wives of Wawas, the Rosemary’s Baby of convenience stores, the Get Out of retail experiences. It’s got some of the markings of a Wawa, but something feels off, very off, and it’s unsettling to think what it might lead to.

“It’s inconvenient now to say the least,” Eric Kane, 40, of South Philly, said outside the store Tuesday. “It makes you feel, as a customer, they don’t trust you anymore.”

Wawa denied The Inquirer’s request to take pictures inside the store, and Wawa spokesperson Lori Bruce declined to answer questions about what prompted the redesign, except to say in an emailed statement that it “will allow busy customers to place their orders and get their purchases faster than ever.”

But when news broke last week of the concept store, Philadelphians had their theories. With the closure of six Wawas in Center City and nearby neighborhoods within the last three years, many believe the redesign is an effort to curb theft and vandalism.

“I do understand the design because I used to be in here and see a lot of theft going on,” Kane said. “But it’s Wawa’s job to manage security and protect their assets, not inconvenience their customers.”

The only things that remain accessible to the public at the Wawa at Market and 34th Streets are the self-serve coffee, ATMs, and newspapers (because who would steal those). The store used to have bathrooms for customers, but those are gone too.

I could even see the fully-stocked soda case behind a temporary wall that’s been placed in the store, but I couldn’t access it.

“It’s like a robot Wawa,” customer Claudia Galvis, 39, of Northeast Philly, said of the all-digital format.

For many of us, a Wawa run is about more than the products we buy there. It’s about thanking the person who will inevitably hold the door open for you, having random conversations with strangers in the chip aisle, and chatting it up with the cashier who always seems to be working when you come in.

While people will run you over in a Wawa parking lot, something inexplicable happens once you reach that door. It’s like a magical portal to civility and kindness. It doesn’t make sense that such a portal would be found at a convenience store, but these days, we have to take whatever magic we can get.

Are there those who act like fools inside of Wawas? Of course, but it’s not all people, it’s not even most.

While the new test format will probably deter theft and vandalism, it also deters human interaction. I didn’t see a single person chatting it up with someone they didn’t walk in with at the new store.

There are no more aisles to meander through, no products or decorations to spark conversation. And if you pay at the kiosk (or via the mobile app) instead of the counter, you don’t have to have a single human interaction, aside from grabbing your order from the person who calls your number.

The staff on site did their best, but it wasn’t the same.

“The people are nice, they know it’s different, but they’re trying,” customer Rose Ferrer, 60, of Northeast Philly, said.

I grew up in Sheetz country in central Pennsylvania, and while I visited the store often, I never felt loyalty to it. But when I moved to this area 16 years ago, it took only months for me to become a Wawa fan.

It became a familiar place to go to in an unfamiliar land. The associates began to recognize me as a regular at their store, and treated me like one. They noticed when I didn’t come in, and on those days when it felt like nobody would notice if I was gone, that meant a lot.

I began to recognize what people around here love so much about Wawa. It’s got less to do with the products, and everything to do with the people. The ones who work there, the ones we see there, and the people we are there. There’s a comfort in being a regular, whether it’s at a bar, a diner, or even a convenience store.

The milk, coffee, and hoagies aren’t why motorists have Wawa license plates; it’s not why people wait in ridiculously long lines for new store openings; and it’s not why extreme Wawa fans like Cherylann Siple, who I interviewed earlier this year, have gone to their store every day for 30 years.

“I like to experience the good morning with the good people here,” Siple told me. “There’s not a more giving, caring group of people, and I don’t mean just to me. I see it every day how they are.”

When you take away those human interactions, Wawa becomes just a place of transaction, and you become whatever number is printed on your order slip.

I’ve covered Wawa openings — from its biggest flagship store, to one of its smallest — and I’ve stopped at dozens of Wawas in the area as a customer.

I’ve never met a Wawa I didn’t like, until I met “robot Wawa.”

If this is a test concept, I hope it fails. Every good story has people at the center of it, and that goes for Wawa’s story too.