It may seem like a silly debate to some, it may be the most serious affiliation a person can declare to others, and to a casual observer there may be no distinguishable difference between either of them at all…

It is a battle over which East Coast mega convenience store is best: Sheetz or Wawa? (Don’t even bother mentioning Royal Farms or Rutter’s in this argument, they are the Canada of the G7 in this debate)

Most Wawa people wouldn’t turn their back on Sheetz if all that was available at the exit was infact only a Sheetz, a Blimpie/Exxon, and an outdated Texaco. Likewise Sheetz fans would happily break mold and jump in to a Wawa for a coffee and pack of smokes if its a closer walk to their beach rental.

The question is which one do you pick when both are side by side on a green “facilities” highway sign? Do you drive a few extra exits on an empty tank - passing two Sheetz locations - to get to the Wawa? Do you have all of the Sheetz exits memorized on Route 81? Or do you (know the difference enough to) go to the “good Wawa” when there are two in one town on your way to go skiing in West Virginia? If that’s how seriously you take your Sheetz-obsession or Wawa-devotion. then this debate is for you.

Over this next week I will examine these two gas-convenience behemoths in an effort to finally determine who is the number one king of the 99 cent coffee and loaded hot dog mountain. Each morning this week I will post a new round in the battle leading up to a final conclusion and announcement of the winner at the end of the week.

Feel free to contribute your thoughts in the comments section - I haven’t written the final post to determine the winner and I can say that its basically a dead heat at this point so make your voice heard. Now let’s get ready to rumble - the bout begins now…

ROUND 1: Let us consider first how Sheetz and Wawa are similar:

• Both feature large, well-lit 24-hour retail space
• Each offers a wide variety of prepared to order foods purchased via a touch screen interface at reasonable prices
• Most (see future rounds) offer gasoline at or around the cheapest prices in town
• Each carries countless brands of soft drinks, bottled beverages, candies, chips, jerkies, and otherwise general convenience store crap
• Each has around a dozen flavors of coffee and specialty lattes available
• Sheetz and Wawa are constantly reinventing themselves and you can see new “versions” of their stores every few years, making you proclaim that THIS is now the “money Sheetz” or the “nice Wawa“
• Both are found in abundance along major highways in the north east and can also be found randomly in small towns
• Both have bathrooms that don’t require keys, are generally clean, and have multiple stalls

ADVANTAGE: Well these are the ways the two are similar so of course round one is a TIE

Click here to continue to Tomorrow’s Round: “The Feel”

After waiting an unacceptably long time I finally managed to get a taste of the Dulles Airport Chipotle Breakfast menu.

I arrived at Dulles Airport over 90 minutes before my flight departed (which is a massive diversion from my usual 30 minute race to the gate) but since I knew Chiptotle Breakfast was on the line I treated it as if I had a flight to a foreign nation with heightened security screenings.

I made it through security and walked underground to the B terminal (my flight was in C) to reach the Chipotle storefront. As I came closer my pace quickened. Once I was upon the front door I was likely somewhere between a full-stride run and an all out sprint. The entire restaurant was empty except for two smiling employees welcoming me in to the gates of Oz. They were the gatekeepers of my breakfast burrito bliss standing from behind a glass, stone and sheetmetal counter.

I looked over the long counter and down at the meats, salsas and toppings. I normally would be looking for which meat looked the tastiest that day but I knew for sure that I would be getting the breakfast-exclusive menu items. I went for the new meat, Chorizo- a peppered sausage meat offering, on this first breakfast trial. I also made sure to order a burrito to get the full effect - though I’m sure a bowl would have gone over just as well. In addition to the Chorizo I piled on ALL of the available breakfast ingredients (scrambled eggs, potatoes, onion-jalapeno salsa) and added my traditional toppings (black beans, pico, corn, sour cream, etc).

As you can see it is otherwise business as usual down the burrito making production line. Once you pass the initial breakfast offerings all of the same Chipotle toppings and salsas are available - further compounding the number of potential combinations you can create for your foil wrapped masterpieces.

I watched and drooled a bit as my burrito was wrapped in foil and was then plopped in to a red basket. I ordered a soda cup, later to be filled with iced tea and lemonade, and grabbed a bottle of Chipotle Tabasco. The cost was no higher for the breakfast offering than a lunch counterpart (and surprisingly there wasn’t an expensive airport premium) and so less than 9 dollars later I was sitting down ready to take my first bite. The first bite seemed strange at first… out of place with the new flavors… but after a few chews the new taste began to settle in as a perfect Chipotle melting pot of hearty spice and sweet.

And before I knew it the burrito was gone… and it was damn tasty. I mean it was warm, fluffy, spicy, and huge. How this hasn’t happened sooner and at more Chipotle locations is beyond me. I’d rank it as one of the best Chipotle burritos I’ve ever had… and that’s in the company of 1000+.

Understandably I had high expectations for the breakfast burrito, and my own personal stock in Chipotle was on the line, but I can say the experience exceeded my lofty target and I plan to make the C.B. stop a mandatory inclusion on every trip I make out of Dulles Airport. Bravo A.M. Chipotle, bravo.

More drastic than expected building renovations, town permit delays, and cold weather has slowed the opening of Virginia Tech’s new Chipotle location. With paper covered windows it is hard to tell exactly what is going on within the 308 to 316 North Main Street structure, but it sounds as though there will be little similarity to the old layout used by Joe’s Barber shop (though we can still hope that young single mothers will be there to rub their breasts against our ears) once the doors open and welcome students to Blacksburg’s second chain burrito establishment.

What was once a potential New Year opening has turned in to a mid-Spring opening for the soon-to-be best restaurant in town. Still, with all the renovations I was hoping it would be open for the spring game and now it looks like that may not be the case.

Its surprising too, when you consider that after an extensive upscale building project fell through at the new Penn State location (another college I called home), Chipotle simply improvised by buying up an old 5 screen movie theater in the heart of  downtown State College and converted it to a mega-Potle. However, if standing in a 30+ minute wait during a particularly bad lunch rush at Chipotle has taught us anything - its that those burritos are worth the wait.

In much the same fashion that Virginia Tech dismantled the Miami Hurricanes on the football field, Seth Greenberg and the Hokies men’s basketball team took a beating stick to the Miami basketball team on Wednesday night.

Helping to heal the pain from a collapse against UNC, the Hokies came out of the gates and lapped their second ACC opponent early on and shot 62 percent in the first half to extend their led to 50-23 at the break. Miami (ranked 23rd in the AP poll) had lost only one game before falling hard to the Hokies and may catapult the team in to a top 25 position come Monday.

Even with a 30+ point lead I still never felt truly comfortable. Miami came on strong in the second half but ultimately the lead was just too great for the Hurricanes to overcome and the Hokies saved the win, and kept my face from bashing itself in to the drywall.