A-Plus
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A-Plus is an American convenience store chain owned & operated by Sunoco, Inc.
The chain began life as the convenience store chain for Atlantic Petroleum in 1985, who earlier that year was spun off of ARCO, Inc. (ARCO itself was formed from the 1966 merger of Atlantic and Richfield Oil.) This was in response to more gas station having convenience stores instead of auto garages in order to keep down the cost of gasoline.
In 1988, Sunoco bought Atlantic, and since Sunoco didn't have its own convenience store chain, A-Plus became Sunoco's chain by default. While Atlantic stations were converted to Sunoco by the mid-1990's, A-Plus grew, with Sunoco rebranding many company-owned stations in the Northeast with convenience stores into A-Plus. Sunoco has even converted some garages into convenience stores with the A-Plus brand.
Sunoco still used the A-Plus logo from the Atlantic days until 1999, when Sunoco updated its own logo and completely redesigning A-Plus's logo, giving it a more Sunoco look.
The number of A-Plus locations that are company-owned and franchised are about 50/50.
While originally a Northeastern US brand, Sunoco has rapidly expanded the A-Plus moniker. In 2001, Sunoco expanded A-Plus into the Southeastern United States by purchasing 193 of Marathon Oil's Speedway SuperAmerica convenience stores -- 115 in Florida, 62 in South Carolina, 13 in North Carolina, and 3 in Georgia. Further expansion is being pushed as part of Sunoco's NASCAR sponsorship, where A-Plus is known as the "Official Pit Stop of NASCAR".
[edit] Store Types
There are two types of A-Plus stores:
- A-Plus Mini Mart -- A full-service convenience store offering a wide range of products.
- A-Plus Express -- A smaller version of the store, only selling soft drinks, snacks, cigarettes, and car-care items.
[edit] Products
Here is a list of products offered at A-Plus locations:
- Gulliver's Coffee -- A-Plus's gourmet coffee. Competes with Circle K's Millstone coffee and Sheetz's Sheetz Bros. Coffee.
- City Deli -- A-Plus's hot foods area. Likely conceived to compete with Sheetz's MTO's, which overlap A-Plus in several areas in Pennsylvania, though it's more similar to Giant Eagle's GetGo Kitchen at their GetGo chain. Currently available only at newer, larger locations.
