Dive Brief:
- 7-Eleven plans to open 1,300 new stores in North America through 2030, according to its parent company Seven & i Holdings’ fiscal fourth-quarter earnings presentation last week.
- The retailer also expects to roughly double the number of stores with QSRs from 1,080 to 2,100, incoming CEO Stephen Dacus said during the fiscal Q4 earnings call.
- These growth and network improvement plans come as Seven & i is preparing to spin off 7-Eleven’s North American c-store business into its own public entity in the second half of 2026.
Dive Insight:
7-Eleven’s plan to open 1,300 new stores through 2030 comes about six months after sharing that it would open 600 stores over four years, including 500 between 2025 and 2027. The 2030 target shows that 7-Eleven intends to ramp up annual store openings, and it has already increased the number of store openings planned for the next three years from 500 to 550.
The 1,300 goal would represent about 10% of the 12,963 stores 7-Eleven had in North America in February. It’s also more stores than all but four of its c-store competitors have in their entire networks, according to the NACS top 100.
It’s unclear if this will increase 7-Eleven’s overall store count, since the company also plans to close some underperforming stores. 7-Eleven closed more locations than it opened in fiscal 2024 and expects to do the same in fiscal 2025, according to the company’s 2024 summary.
The majority of these 1,300 sites will use the new standard design, said 7-Eleven President Stan Reynolds in the call. These locations offer a larger product assortment and expanded food and beverage offerings compared to traditional 7-Eleven stores.
“These food-forward stores are resonating with our customers and driving [average sales per store day] about 18% higher than our system average,” said Reynolds. “We'll continue learning from these stores and refine our new store standard to meet the needs of consumers both now and in the future.”
Alongside these new locations come plans to roughly double the number of QSRs in 7-Eleven’s stores. The retailer’s QSR network includes Raise the Roost Chicken & Biscuits, Laredo Taco Company and Speedy Café.
At the end of 2024, 7-Eleven had 1,080 stores with QSRs. While it expects to open 50 more in 2025, that pace will need to ramp up considerably between 2026 and 2030 to reach 2,100.
7-Eleven did not respond by press time when asked if all of the new QSRs will be in newly built stores.
As 7-Eleven begins to gear up for its upcoming initial public offering, these changes should give a boost to the bottom line.
Stores using the new standard design are expected to see 45% higher average sales per store day once the sites are mature, with fresh food and private label goods sales expected to more than double and proprietary beverages growing more than 60%, according to the earnings presentation. On the restaurant side, stores with QSRs see an average of 57% more traffic and 36% higher average sales per store day.
