Dive Brief:
- Yesway will soon open its first stores in Arizona, executives said during the company’s first quarterly earnings call as a public company.
- In the earnings call, President and CEO Tom Trkla said the first stores will probably debut later this year and noted that Arizona has “a very strong customer, very strong receptivity to our food service program, very good demographic.”
- The retailer has stores in Douglas and Wilcox, Arizona, listed on its website as “coming soon” and Trkla said in the earnings call that the company has broken ground on at least one site.
Dive Insight:
Yesway plans to open six to eight new stores this year and about 26 in 2027. Trkla noted in the earnings call that a majority of that pipeline is in Arizona.
“We’re very excited about Arizona,” said Trkla. “It’s got traditionally higher fuel margins, even higher than our New Mexico and West Texas fuel margins, which are also very high to begin with, but the market itself is very strong.”
Yesway’s long-term growth plans include 130 NTIs through 2031, the company said in its IPO filing. And Arizona is a big part of those plans.
“We’re basically concentrating in four states right now: Oklahoma, New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona,” Trkla said in the call. “Arizona will probably be our highest growth state of those four states in the foreseeable future.”
The first two Arizona stores are slated to be Allsup’s sites, according to the company website. That banner, well known for its fried burritos, makes up the bulk of the company’s Southwestern stores.
Most of the company’s new stores will be developed through Yesway’s “build-to-suit” program, in which a third party contributes the majority of the capital to construct the new store while Yesway oversees site selection, permitting, design and the construction processes. Once construction is done, Yesway operates the location under a long-term lease agreement.
