The Final Tally

Before we come to the moment of truth lets also see a summary of the previous rounds that lead us to this point:

Round 1: The point at which the two locations diverge. A tie is the only result when you compare similarities. 

Round 2: Take your flavor of shit - you’ll see an even share of scum and oddities when you make a trip to a remote Sheetz or Wawa. They tie in round two.

Round 3: Touch screens separate all need to interact with store employee, which means you won’t get judged at 2am when you order 4 feet of subs. Wawa is the winner of the food round.

Round 4: Do you have twenty bucks and no will to live? Then fill up a bag full of carnival food and caffeine. Sheetz will take you further.

Round 5: Sheetz has just too much convenience and tops Wawa in the mixed-bag fifth round.

Comments were also considered in addition to the five rounds. Some of the comments were made here on the site, some on facebook, others were shared over drinks. The general effect was a boost in Wawa’s street credibility and fan support.

Using all of this information it came time to analyze all of the data and put a team of Dic Tailgate experts to the task of deciding a winner.

“Look where this shit is going” (stock photo from Dic Tailgate HQ)

With similar revenues (about sales 4.5 billion each), comparable business models, and overlapping operating territories most times you could interchange the names  Sheetz or Wawa in whatever you were saying and it would still make perfect sense. But we came here to declare a winner.

With all the votes in, the scorecards tallied, and the extra bacon for 40 cents more the winner is…

When its all said and done Sheetz just knows its game too well. It may not be the cultural hub of Wawa and the prepared foods are a step below Wawa - but Sheetz rises to the top when you factor in cost, convenience, and overall effectiveness as a stop-and-go gas and convenience store.

Wawa creates superfans from their ability to attach themselves to neighborhoods and the personalities that patronize the store whereas Sheetz simply gets dropped in like a SimCity gift (”cheers”) to just about any location with great success. The passion for Wawa is great, greater than Sheetz in fact (and for good reason) but love it or hate it you Wawa fanboys Sheetz is the king of town. You have your winner, now go get a side of Fryz.

ROUND 5: Everything else.

Sheetz is morally more corrupt than Wawa. Sheetz sells porno, lottery tickets, even beer pong game kits. Sheetz features beer caves and questionable trucker gambling machines that I don’t think are legal even in Nevada. They have a very wide range of hardware items and automotive care products.

Also, almost all Sheetz locations sell gas (cheap shitty gas but it will still make your car go) whereas a good number of Wawa locations do not sell any gas at all - there aren’t even any air pumps.

From personal experience I also know that Wawa sells very few automotive products. I once ran out of gas outside of Baltimore and walked nearly 2 miles to Wawa (I was trying to get there in the first place). I asked if they had a loaner gas can and they said “no, because its a liability”- okay fine - so I asked to buy one. They had only one, and that one was a 10 gallon jug that couldn’t even fit in my trunk. I drove back to the Wawa after pouring in a gallon. Having no need for the gas container I offered to donate it to the store for any future patrons who may be in my position but they just said “we’ll just throw it away and put in an order for a new one to replenish the stock.” I guess they needed to make room for their hard boiled egg party platters and “How I Met Your Mother” t-shirts.

Sheetz is now starting to put touch screen MTO ordering systems out by the pump. Though there have been a number of technical problems with the systems due to their exposure to elements, when they are working its great to get all your beep beep boops done before your gas is even done pumping.

For a while neither location welcomed patrons to stay around and loiter. Neither had any kind of eating area or seating. There has been a slight change in the tides with the newer Sheetz locations however. Metal tables and chairs adorned with bright green metal umbrellas have appeared outside of some storefronts and others have a cafe area where patrons can sip their coffee in a Starbucks like atmosphere. The first company to offer free Wifi might just be decalared a defacto winner of this round but as of yet, you still need to drive across the street to the Microtel and steal theirs.

ADVANTAGE: Sheetz is the winner here, there is just too much convenience at Sheetz when you compare to Wawa - and that’s important as afterall they are both convenience stores.

Click to Get To The Final Round: The Final Tally

ROUND 4: The $20 Test.

It was a favorite game played between me and my roommates at Penn State and the rules were simple and singular: determine who could accumulate the most Sheetz MTO or Wawa ToGo per visit based on weight with the winner being the owner of the order that tipped the scale the most (the winner had to eat the contents of their bag to actually achieve victory).

However, that game may not be the best metric when trying compare between the Pennsylvania born Sheetz with the New Jersey native Wawa. Instead we will see what around $20 bucks can get you at each location:

Wawa takes a leave from this battle earlier on. Though gas prices are generally the same at each establishment, and costs for regular retail merchandise and brand-name foods are pretty similiar, the prepared foods and self-serve drink prices are much better at Sheetz. Perhaps you are paying for higher quality at Wawa and so you’d expect to pay a bit more, but you can bet that your 20 bucks will get you a much heavier bag at Sheetz.

Sheetz is the king of sub 2-dollar menu items (and equally low-priced cigarettes). They feature 4 dollar footlong subs and dirt cheap loaded hot dogs. Drink promotions allow you to get ANY size coffee or softdrink at a single price point, usually around a dollar.

Wawa long held claim to “NO FEES” ATM machines. It was an unheard of practice when I first saw it (especially compared to $7.50 fees you see on Bourbon Street) but Sheetz has followed suit and now offers the same fee-free ATM machines at their locations.

When you are a Wawa location, you can charge a bit more since you are offering mini-veggie trays and hummus cups. But careful of that impulse filled soft-pretzel buy you might make while checking out, it could set you back another three bucks. Sheetz won’t charge you that - but that’s because they have nothing as remotely appetizing in the check out line. For this round its the mighty dollar and what you can get for it that carries the day and who can say no to a two dollar Meatball Sub with parmesan cheese, pickles, cooked onions and peppers, olives, and some BBQ sauce?

RESULT: Sheetz is the heavier hitter and gives you more bang for your buck – it’s a the clear winner of this round.

Click to Continue to Tomorrow’s Round: Everything else (not just on the shelves)

ROUND 3: The Touch-Screen of Wonderment

Sheetz has this cute little way of adding “Sh” to the front of their Made-To-Order foods, and if that doesn’t make phonetic sense then they will throw a “Z” on the end of the item. Bagels become Shmaglez, Quesadillas are Queszadillaz, and even Garlic French Fries become Fryz. The menu is wide-ranging but not very adventurous. You’ll find typical fare such as hamburgers, hot dogs, hot and cold subs, even salads and some sides.

Breakfast is perhaps the MTO’s strongest move in this round. A wide range of breakfast items interchange breakfast meats, cheeses, egg, and a variety of toppings ranging from tabasco to pesto sauce and sandwich options such as English muffins and pretzel rolls. At the top of the MTO breakfast mountain is the Shmonster - a glorious two egg, double meat, double cheese heart stopper that can’t be topped or easily digested.

A fan favorite for many is the Mac-and-Cheese offerings and Sheetz also offers via the touch screen a premium coffee and latte menu branded under “Sheetz Bros.” at most locations. Limited time promotions come and go and feature such favorites as pulled pork sandwiches, pizza, and panini-style Ruben sandwiches though every now and then Sheetz wanders in to bad culinary territory (spicy burritos, blts, and fried chicken) causing you to experience overpriced flavor abortionz.

Wawa really knows how to make touch screen ordering as stress-free as possible. Not only does Wawa feature a spread of food options, they allow orders to be placed with customizable specifics such as “just a lil’ bit of mayo”, or on the side, and there is even a button to call out a special request if the pages and pages of buttons don’t give you what you want.

Wawa’s Hoagies surpass the quality of subs offered at Sheetz. Hoagie selections include diced chicken breast and bacon carbonara and the bread is always soft and warm. If you order your sandwich with a lot of goodies on top Wawa goes the extra step of putting a layer of plastic over the sandwich so it doesn’t leak out and seep through the paper wrapping around the hoagie.

Wawa’s variety is quite good also. Wawa avoids the temptation to offer crappy burgers and hot dogs and instead provides soups, chicken strips, rice bowls, and wraps. More significantly Wawa offers healthier options such as sliced apples, flatbread low-carb sandwiches, and for the real asshole patron there is even hummus.

Although Wawa doesn’t have a breakfast behemoth to pit against the mighty Schmonster (EDIT: There is a breakfast hoagie that may just be a contender), Wawa does have the greatest seasonal item of all the land - the Gobbler. The Gobbler combines all of the greatest toppings from your Thanksgiving meal (turkey, gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce) and puts it all on a warm roll for you to inhale as its gooey amazingness spills out of all crevices.

ADVANTAGE: Leaving price aside, Wawa squeaks by on their consistent great taste, wide variety and special limited time offerings.

Click Here to Continue to Tomorrow’s Round: The $20 Test

Now let’s see how Sheetz and Wawa diverge. We explore in this round the “culture” and feeling of each establishment in Round 2:

Sheetz has been called the convenience store that gives you that crack-of-dawn feeling when you’re on your way somewhere far away and its your first reward for waking up early. You even tell your stomach “get on the road by 7 AM and I’ll treat you to a Breakfast Shmuffin.” Sheetz is the kind of place where you park your truck and don’t even get gas.

Wawa on the other that last stop before you leave the beach. You have sand on your toes, bikini-strap sunburns and dry hair. Its the last taste of freedom you have as the sunset melts away in the final moments before twilight just before you return back to a boring workweek on Monday. The warm glow of the convenience store almost tells you that the sun will never set on the weekend. You get gas at Wawa - a full tank, and take extra time wandering the store as to prolong the inevitable drive home.

The feeling inside the stores is somewhat similar. Staff at both businesses are usually very nice, the touch-screen machines make fun and quirky noises, everything is well lit, shiny and clean. Bright colors overload your mind as you walk around the store (especially when you have just woken up or are wasted) and the aisles are shallow and wide with plenty of room to get around and see the things you have no need for.

However, Sheetz clientele is likely to be much more redneck than Wawa’s usual crowd. In a Sheetz you’ll often find avid hunters in full camouflage refilling their 120 ounce coffee before returning to their diesel fed raised axel pick-up truck with chrome balls hanging from the tow hitch. Wawa doesn’t do much better by attracting complete Jersey scum to their stores. I’m not talking about the funny and lovable Jersey Shore guidos either, but rather the glue-sniffing baby-dropping homemade-tattoo douche fags Jersey retards with butterfly knives on the outside of their pant-shorts escorting bleached blonds with cinderblocked faces and bone skinny arms.

ADVANTAGE: Consider it the ying and yang, the dawn and dusk, the Adam and Andy LaRoche, you get the idea. Its a TIE here too.

Click Here to Continue to Tomorrow’s Round: MTO vs. Touch and Go!

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”

JMU went for some Virginia school bragging rights by throwing a flash mob rave Sunday night in the lobby of their East Campus Library to help burn off some exam stress. The mob appeared about 9:35 p.m. and within minutes the sound system was overrun by a DJ bringing on crowd surfing and stage diving from the second floor.

JMU used to be where Hokies went to hunt down and tag a slump buster but now I think they just could hang out and party with us if they wanted to.

I suppose its only fair to post the FXCO reply video to my earlier posting of “Arlington: The Rap” - unfortunately Fairfax sucks so much worse than A-Town that its more depressing than funny to watch. They did at least visit a Chipotle …

Hasbro’s “Transformers” toy line received a shot to the arm from Jerry “Blow Up The Exploding Explosion” Bruckheimer’s (EDIT: Michael “Turn up the bass on the sunset” Bay’s) recent films… Unfortunately, the blockbuster movies did not try very hard at updating the robots for 2009 and kept with the early 80’s creatures having the ability to transform from dated objects such as trucks, planes, and tanks. If they decide to make a third Transformers film - and I am sure they will - I think the following robots would represent a much more suitable modern day lineup of friends and foes to run around with Toe Thumb and Drunk Shit:

REDBOXACON: Always prepared to offer the latest romantic comedy for only a buck a night, REDBOXACON dwells among us in suburban sprawls. As an Autobot his powers are as limitless as his number of DVD titles, just don’t expect there to be a copy of Bride Wars the day it comes out.

WHOLEFOODSCYLON: Just when you thought the Whole Foods salad bar couldn’t get any more intense, WHOLEFOODSCYLON’s fist will come flying out of the Chinese snow peas. This Deceptacon does NOT allow sampling, and at $6.99 a pound its really the best death machine deal in town.

LABRATRON: A combination of Autobot, Labrador Retriever, and Poodle, Labratron is mankind’s last hope and best friend. A special breed created specifically to not shed hair, this little fellow springs to life when ethnic strangers come by. His sidekick “Plasticbagatron” is never too far away to pick up the pieces left by this fierce warrior robot.

DIVORCEACON: More than meets the sixteen eyes… DIVORCEACON is a Decepticon disguised as the 8 Gosselin children. This overbearing ‘bot puts undue pressure on otherwise happy marriages and causes honest spouses to stray -usually to a slutty co-worker or thoughtful gay friend.

…

Occasionally, after drinking excessive amounts of alcohol, you become extremely motivated about some particular topic of conversation and then when the buzz wears off you question how you ever found the topic even remotely interesting, let alone worthy of extended conversation. Last weekend a debate over the “Best East Coast Supermarket Chain” erupted. It was resolved in a seeded bracket system (taking in to account overall value, selection, fresh and prepared foods, and store quality)… I feel compelled to show the results below. This drunkbate did not include big-box stores such as Costco, Walmart, or Target.

We might as well have been deciding whether to launch a nuclear attack on North Korea when we were deciding this thing, and many match-ups went to diplomatic debate involving Robert’s Rules. But again, once sober, I have no clue why this was such an engaging debate.