QuikTrip

While driving through Dallas, Burt Holmes was intrigued by the success of 7-Eleven and decided to open a small grocery store in his hometown of Tulsa. He took on classmate Chester Cadieux as a partner in his planned venture.[5] Holmes and Cadieux each invested $5,000, and three other investors put up $2,000 each for the venture.[6]

The first QuikTrip store was opened in a Tulsa strip mall in 1958, which sold a limited selection of groceries with high prices for the convenience.[7] The chain grew rapidly, opening its first store outside Tulsa in 1964, expanding to Missouri in 1968 and Iowa in 1974.[5]

QuikTrip began to sell gasoline in 1971 as states legalized self-service stations. In the early 1970s, co-founder Cadieux eliminated slow-moving merchandise from the stores' inventory, such as canned vegetables, and stocked a larger quantity of items, priced low for high-volume sales, such as beer, soda, coffee, cigarettes, and candy.[7] In 1976, it became one of the first convenience store chains to be open 24 hours a day. Also that year, it adopted its now-famous "QT" logo.[5]

QuikTrip had its own branded goods marketed from the 1970s to the 1980s, including QT Beer—QT for "Quittin' Time". The ad campaign, "It's QT Time Again", would often show a dog named Lamar. The dog's owner was portrayed in television commercials by actor Ben Jones, who often asked the dog, "Ain't that right, Lamar?"[8]

In 1987, Cadieux was the first inductee into the Convenience Store Hall of Fame and was noted for being the first to offer self serve fountain drinks, the first to design and offer a fast food module, the first to open a downtown convenience store, and the first to install personal computers in the stores and tie them to the company's mainframe.[6]

In 1988, upon rapid expansions into the St. Louis and Atlanta markets, QuikTrip began a renovation of all stores, primarily replacing the earthtone exterior and interior with a bright red color scheme. The interior decor featured red countertops and a red quarry tile floor; almond tile on the walls interspersed with painted red sections of the walls to create contrast. Some gold trim maintained continuity from the previous decor. The company also took more care with landscaping around the store.[7] By the early 1990s, QuikTrip began to offer fast foods and fountain beverages at its stores, being the first convenience store to offer a self-serve soda fountain and a self-serve coffee bar. Expensive advertising led the company to phase out the private label beer by this time.[7]

In 1994, QuikTrip acquired the former Memorex/Telex Communications headquarters in Tulsa and remodeled part of the building for its Oklahoma division. In 2003, QuikTrip decided to consolidate all employees into one corporate campus in south Tulsa and sold the building to Community Care College.[9]

In 2017, QuikTrip announced plans to expand into two additional markets in Texas, San Antonio and Austin.[10] The first San Antonio store opened in October 2018, with three more locations opening in the following months.[11]

Exterior of a QuikTrip store in Des Moines, Iowa in 2004

In an attempt to increase speed and improve customer service at checkout, QuikTrip asks customers to stand at the counter versus standing in a long line. Employees are taught at orientation to go provide assistance on an additional register when the customer to cashier ratio exceeds 3:1, and to direct customers to the closest available checkout.

Since the early 1990s, QuikTrip has sold a private label brand of fast food, "Quick 'n Tasty" and "HOTZI sandwiches". "Quick 'n Tasty" heat-and-serve sandwiches include Texas Ham and Cheese, BarBQ Pork Rib, and the Super Po Boy. "HOTZI" breakfast sandwiches included the sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit and the breakfast burrito.[7]

In 2012, QuikTrip began an initiative of offering fresh food made daily at its own bakery and commissary referred to as QT Kitchens. The products includes fresh sandwiches, wraps, salads, fruit, and various pastries made and delivered daily.[12] Since then, QuikTrip has expanded the "QT Kitchens" brand to include actual kitchens in their stores with made-to-order hot food as well as specialty drinks.[13] The company also retrofitted their older style stores to include the new kitchen operations, in addition to building entirely new "Gen 3" stores. These stores feature multiple entrances, a common floor-plan (coffee and tea, baked goods, grocery items and liquor in one wing; fountain sodas, hot dogs, chips and bottled non-alcoholic drinks in the other; and a deli case with sandwiches and candy in the middle) and are centered around the QT Kitchens counter, which provides made-to-order food as well as a grab-and-go selection of breakfast sandwiches in the morning and pizza slices in the afternoon and evening.

Map of QuikTrip locations as of October 2020.

QuikTrip operates over 800 stores,[17] which are located in the following areas of the United States:

• Arizona: Phoenix metro (116 stores)
• Colorado: Denver metro (coming 2021)
• Georgia: Atlanta metro (139 stores)
• Iowa: Des Moines metro (33 stores)
• Kansas: Wichita metro (39 stores)
• Kansas / Missouri: Kansas City metro (89 stores)
• Missouri / Illinois: St. Louis metro (75 stores)
• Nebraska / Iowa: Omaha metro (16 stores)
• North Carolina / South Carolina: Charlotte metro (91 stores)
• Oklahoma: Tulsa metro (82 stores)
• Remote Store Network: Joplin, Missouri, Lindale, Texas (2 stores)
• Texas: Dallas / Fort Worth metro (155 stores)
• Texas: Austin, Texas / San Antonio, Texas metro (46 stores)

All stores are owned and operated by the company.

In the Atlanta and Dallas/Fort Worth metro areas, QuikTrip competes head to head with RaceTrac, an Atlanta-based convenience store chain that is very similar to QuikTrip inside and out. Both chains tend to have new clean facilities with abundant on-site lighting and a large convenience area.[18][19] In many cases, the two competitors are located directly across the street or on opposite street corners from one another.[20] In 2017, QuikTrip began expansion into the Austin and San Antonio metro areas, in direct competition with another similar rival, Buc-ee's.[21]

Because the company operates stores in Iowa and retains the trademarks to the name within that state, competing chain Kwik Trip uses a different name for their stores in the state, Kwik Star.

QuikTrip has nearly 100 locations in the Phoenix metropolitan area, but none located within the city limits of the suburb of Scottsdale. This is due to a city ordinance that regulates the design and build of gas and service stations within city limits. Neither the city nor the company will give in to the other (in other words QuikTrip will not build a station to appease the ordinance and Scottsdale will not make an exception to QuikTrip), and therefore Scottsdale is the only city in the Phoenix area without a QuikTrip.

The company has run into similar issues in Overland Park, Kansas, but it is more from a desire to make the city more "pedestrian-friendly".[22]

• Official website
• Reifman, Shlomo; Murphy, Andrea D. (November 6, 2008). "# 32 QuikTrip". "America's Largest Private Companies". Forbes.
• Voices of Oklahoma interview with Chester Cadieux. First person interview conducted on July 31, 2009, with Chester Cadieux, co-founder of QuikTrip.
• Voices of Oklahoma interview with Burt B. Holmes. First person interview conducted on May 28, 2014, with Burt B. Holmes, co-founder of QuikTrip. See Chapter 9 titled "QuikTrip."