Has Wawa jumped the shark? | Opinion

Growing up in Delco, Wawa was a staple of my childhood. I have still-vivid memories, some three decades later, of regular trips to my neighborhood corner store. My parents brought us post-soccer and softball games — as they ordered sliced lunch meat, my siblings and I would gather the Amoroso rolls and fight over the tongs to fish whole pickles from a barrel. I spent my college years in Sheetz country in Central Pennsylvania, and over those four years, I went to the subpar gas station convenience store only once, under duress. The first stop I made when I landed in America, after spending an entire year studying abroad — with heavenly handmade pastas, free-flowing wine, and the world’s best gelato, but no Wawa — was to pick up a two-pack of soft pretzels and an aggressively sized fountain Dr. Pepper.

What I’m saying is, I’ve loved my hometown convenience store longer than I’ve loved my husband, and much longer than I’ve loved my children. But after witnessing the new chicken sandwich, I’m worried about Wawa.

The fried chicken sandwich — sold in a handful of Wawas, and by most accounts, including the one given by Michael Klein in this paper — is a disaster. Even if you haven’t tasted it, you can see it in the dehydrated discs masquerading as a toasted brioche bun, the goopy garlic aioli.

And you could see in it a sort of unabashed effort to be part of the conversation. Was it because Popeye’s seemingly found the fried magic bullet that prompted a social media flurry, endless lines, and all-around mayhem? Or other chains like Chick-fil-A and, yes, Sheetz, sell them? This would be like if Beyoncé learned how to play the flute because Lizzo won a bunch of Grammys.

The beloved chain doesn’t need to go after the trendy food-of-the-moment crowd to be great or relevant. It feels desperate, and Wawa has historically been better than that. The dairy-farm-turned-convenience-store has been doing it “just a little bit better” since its first outpost opened in Folsom in 1964. It’s given us touchscreen menus and reliably good coffee and pristine stores for decades.

The company is only testing out the sandwich as a dinner option in six stores (noting that’s less than 1% of their stores), but it’s not a final version, according to Jennifer Wolf, external public relations supervisor for Wawa.

“We appreciate the opportunity to put this pilot and our testing process in perspective. … We are constantly testing new products, and it’s important to note that test items are not the final products that will ultimately be included on our menu,” Wolf told me in an email. “They are a way for us to better understand their potential and appeal to customers, while learning about the enhancements we need to make from execution to recipe.”

» READ MORE: Philly real talk: Wawa’s hoagies are just not that good | Opinion

Fair enough. The problem is, though, that the chicken sandwich signals something more.

As Philly’s culinary scene has flourished in the last decade, our collective bar is higher for what constitutes good food. It feels like Wawa’s food game, which has arguably been slipping for years, is heading in the opposite direction. Carefully assembled hoagies, with freshly cut meat and cheese on good rolls, gave way to subpar, parbaked rolls and sloppily constructed sandwiches. As the chain has diversified, it’s added seemingly incongruous items to their menu. Not just Shortis, now it’s quesadillas and burritos and Molten Lava lattes. But — likely because of our blind loyalty, the idea of Wawa irrevocably tied to our hometown pride — they’ve kept giving us things, and we’ve kept shoving them in our faces. But maybe the chicken sandwich is the turning point. Perhaps this is the moment they say, “Let them eat Tastykakes!” and we, as a city, say, “Off with their heads.”

Last year, the company opened more than one new store each week, both within the city and as far as Florida. Even as it’s grown, we’ve been rooting for Wawa, but the farther it strays from the original hometown convenience store — the more fried chicken sandwiches and burgers and pasta dishes and lattes pop up on the touchscreen menus — the harder it is to remember the taste of those hoagies, and the reasons we’ve stayed loyal this long.

Regan Stephens is a Philadelphia-based freelance writer. She’s worked at People and Philadelphia magazines, and her work has appeared in Food & Wine, Fortune, and Edible Philly. The first gift she ever gave her husband was a red-hooded Wawa sweatshirt.