Why exClark stations are the way they are

I was kidding on that one, no I wouldn't want to own a gas station.

There's an old Gulf station that is now unbranded because Gulf really isn't in Cleveland anymore, but anyhow one day I was there making a delivery and some guy ran up to me and said "I used to own this gas station with my buddy, after a few months of this stuff I said this isn't for me." He then went on and said "Gulf was pulling out of Cleveland and wanted to unload this station as soon as possible and sold if for a song and I guess the tanks were fiber glass so everything was A-Okay I guess who the heck knows the place is a dump, but I always thought the same thing those underground tanks are a huge liability and there really isn't any money in selling gas so the places do other things like sell lottery tickets and beer and cigarettes and beef jerky.

 

The gas station business is a very complex and interesting one. We have a few unbranded gas stations here in Cleveland, but also aren't there such things and lease stations like BP's one of the BP stations I deliver to I swear is owned by BP the property, but is leased from BP by a guy.

What's funny though is here in Cleveland, we have a lot of Shell stations, and I can honestly say I have never seen a Royal Dutch Shell station switch brands and that was because the owners died and Shell must not have wanted that station anymore and it went unbranded. We have independently owned or leased shell stations, but I can only think of one Shell station that ever switched brands. Actually Shell here in Cleveland if they liked the station bought it back from the owner, that's happened a lot where the Shell distributor bought the station back from the owner, we've got a lot of corporate owned shell stations.

Gas Hauler what's up with this?

As you know BP owns Arco. Well all of our bigger BPs because we don't have Arco's here in Cleveland, anyhow the bigger BPs started life as BP Connected then switched to AM/PM brand we had AM/PM brand BPs here in Cleveland and now they are all switching again to 7-11.

7-11 is odd, we have always had 7-11 in Cleveland, but like in the late 1990s 7-11 sold off a lot of there free standing stores and they all just became Mom and Pop C-Stores all but one. Now 7-11 is coming back, but branded with BP gas stations.

Why do they play all these name games with the C-Stores. One minute there AM/Pm then the next there 7-11 then 3 years later there something else?

Like there was one 7-11 here in Cleveland that was also a Valero station well a couple weeks ago they had all of there gas tanks pulled out of the ground and pumps taken out and canopy taken down parking lot paved over and now it's just a 7-11.