Well isn’t this convenient. 7-Eleven, aka the place where you buy swimming pools full of Diet Coke, just opened their very first US airport location at LAX’s Tom Bradley International Terminal. The 950 sq. ft. store is on the pre-security/arrivals level of TBIT and just may turn into the biggest airport retail development of the year. While there are 10,500 7-Eleven stores in North America, this marks the first in-terminal location within US borders and it joins the 59 other airport 7-Elevens in 12 foreign countries.
Why is this a big deal? Drugs, man. 7-Eleven will be selling travel-sized packs of medicine as well as travel toiletries. If you forgot to stock up on the small stuff before you left, you now have the option to snag some NyQuil or Tylenol PM before you go on that 12 hour flight to London. That’s progress, my friends.
It’s not all about the pills, though. You’ll also have a huge variety of pre-flight snacks to peruse. According to the story in Nation’s Restaurant News:
The airport 7-Eleven offers hot pizza whole and by the slice, chicken wings and tenders, taquitos, nachos, mini tacos, empanadas and breakfast sandwiches, as well as hot dogs, sub sandwiches and beverages, the company said. Snacks include hummus, guacamole and yogurt parfaits, and baked items include Cinnabon Gooey Bites.
I don’t really trust the food at 7-Elevens in my own neighborhood, so I don’t think I’d trust their airport empanadas either but hey, maybe they’re amazing! Word on the street (and that street is apparently USA Today street) is that the shop is also selling 10-inch Dodger Dogs for a little more than $2. That’s a pretty sweet deal considering most sandwiches at the airport never fall under $5.
USA Today also reports that more airport 7-Elevens are planned for DFW in the near future.
The next time you hit LAX, you’ll be able to get your Slurpee on for real. That’s… good news?
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I miss having convenience stores in airports. They have Lawson and Family Marts in Japanese airports and its like heaven on earth. Everything is reasonably priced and they even sell beer! It’s great to be able to walk about the terminal with a $1.50 beer, seriously. The US is far behind in this regard.
I just paid $3.95 for a 20 ounce bottle of coke at Hudson news at ORD and later in the week paid $10 for a lunch meat sandwich worth $3 at CLT so anything to bring the prices down would help.
I believe that OSL had the first international 7-11 in 2002, at least in Northern-Europe / US.
It opened on an arrival site on January 1st in 2002. It was intentionally ment as a super-market, but the only bid was from retailer SPAR offering approx 4% in concessions -and the rest is history.
I believe the present 7-11 shop at OSL in Norway is netting USD million 5,1 in turnover and is quite profitable.