Contributor Post: Stop N' Go "Hex" Stores - Memphis Locations

Today's post highlights Shelby County, TN, retail.

It was a new concept in Convenience Stores, designed to appeal to a broader customer base, including women. At least two of these stores were built in Memphis in the mid 1980's.

That's the first line of a document that I recently found in the MSRB inbox. Makes you intrigued to hear the rest of the story, doesn't it? The Mid-South Retail Blog is proud to kick off the month of August with a highly detailed post from new blog contributor Mike B. The images and text below, unless otherwise specified, were authored by Mike. So let's go ahead and continue taking a look at what Mike has kindly sent in for us...

Starting in 1985, Houston based National Convenience Stores (NCS), parent company of Stop N' Go stores, rolled out a new store design with a Hexagonal Shape -- called their "Hex Store". Located at High Profile intersections, this store was built with a more upscale image than their traditional Stop N' Go markets. They were designed to compete with major oil company gasoline stations while allowing a broader array of merchandise in the convenience store.

• The Stop N' Go Hex Store was 3100 Square Feet, 600 of which were reserved for Fast Food Sales.
• The 6 sided design allowed for more parking for customers.
• Stores had between 3 to 6 Multi Product Fuel Dispensers, located under large canopies, and closer to the front door than most traditional convenience stores at that time. They sold 3 times more gasoline and 30 to 40% more merchandise than a traditional convenience store.
• Stop N' Go Hex Stores were built in Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Antonio, Las Vegas, Atlanta, and other large metropolitan markets.

The two Stop N' Go Hex Stores that were built in Memphis were located at 5755 Raleigh LaGrange Road @ Sycamore View Road and 6075 E. Shelby Drive @ Riverdale Road. As in other cities, the stores were located in solidly middle class areas close to new houses and apartments.

In March 1986, National Convenience Stores left Memphis when they sold 186 convenience stores in nine markets to Circle K Stores for $51 million in cash. Both Memphis locations operated as Circle K Stores for at least 20 years. The stores are still operating as independent convenience stores.

Mike sent in some images alongside his article, showing the two Memphis Stop N' Go Hex Stores. Better yet, the images are all (relatively) historic, in that they show the stores operating as Circle K. Per Google Street View imagery, the Circle K branding was gone from both locations by 2012.

Here we've got the 5755 Raleigh LaGrange store, as seen in the mid-1990s. Depending on when exactly this shot was taken, the rebrand to Circle K from Stop N' Go may still have been fairly recent. The station was using STP-branded gasoline at this point.

By the time this next image of the 5755 Raleigh LaGrange store was taken, the gasoline brand had switched to BP. (This particular rebrand looks to have been recent in 2007, per Google Street View.) For this shot Mike has driven onto the lot, allowing us a closer view of the hexagonal shape of the convenience store. Specifically, you can see how the front of the store is located directly beneath the gas station canopy, and has two side walls angled away on either side of it. These represent three of the six total walls of the structure. (You'll be able to see the hexagonal shape even more clearly momentarily.)

This final image Mike sent in shows the 6975 E Shelby store. Although you can't see it through those trees, the gas station branding at the time this image was taken was 76 (another Google Street View discovery). The station would rebrand exclusively as Circle K for a little while after dropping the 76 affiliation, before becoming a Shell station with an independent convenience store, which it remains today.

I thought it might be a good idea to supplement Mike's post with some additional, present-day images from Google Maps, so here are a few screengrabs of those. Up first, we've got an aerial view of the 5755 Raleigh LaGrange store. The hexagonal shape of the convenience store should now be plainly visible.

 

Similarly, here's an aerial view of the 6975 E Shelby location. The Raleigh LaGrange and Shelby Drive stores were built on the southwest and southeast corners, respectively, of their individual intersections. With that in mind, it's understandable how the lot layouts vary slightly at each store.

 



Here's another aerial view of the 6975 E Shelby store, this time with Google's 3D feature turned off. I included this one just in case any of you might find its depiction of the hexagonal shape easier to make out than that of the 3D version of the same image. Both stations were pretty much identical, which makes total sense given that Stop N' Go was following a particular building prototype with these.

Last up, I also borrowed some Street View captures from Google, trying my best to line them up with the same vantage points we saw in Mike's photos earlier in the post. Here again is the 5755 Raleigh LaGrange store, operating today as a BP station with an independent convenience store. Note that the pylon sign frame is the same (albeit modified) from the Circle K days, and the former Circle K sign on the convenience store itself is simply sitting empty.

Likewise, here's a Street View of the 6975 E Shelby location. This store is operating as a Shell station these days, with an independent convenience store just like the other location. At least this operator has decided to reuse Circle K's old sign frame on the convenience store building!

In his email, Mike included some additional information about Stop N' Go outside of the Memphis area. For instance, for any of our friends up the road in Nashville who may be reading the blog, he wrote, Six Stop N' Go Hex Stores were built in Nashville. It is likely that more were built since National Convenience Stores had a better market presence and stayed in that market until September 1989. Those stores were sold to Mapco Petroleum. All six still operate as Mapco.

Mike also noted in his email that Memphis may possibly have had more than two Stop N' Go Hex Stores; the two featured in this post are simply the only two that his research has come across thus far.

You'll note that I've got this post labeled as a "Lost Histories" post in addition to a contributor post; that's because, as you may have gleaned from Mike's article, Stop N' Go is no more. For a quick rundown on that, Mike sent in a follow-up summary of the now-former chain, writing, They continued to struggle, and by the mid 1990's they had retrenched to their core Texas cities of Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio. Parent company National Convenience Stores was absorbed by Diamond Shamrock and later Valero. Valero rebranded the stores as "Corner Stores" and generally did well. About a year ago, the Corner Stores were all sold to - Circle K.

Mike's sources for his article, in case any of you are interested in reading more, are as follows:

• National Petroleum News -- "Can New 'Hex' Stores Plus Cutbacks Restore NCS' 'Stop N Go' Revenues?" Marvin Reid, February 1987
• "NCS Regroups, Develops New Marketing Strategies To Revitalize Operations" Donald M Smith, March 1990

And finally, Mike also included a link to see a Stop N' Go Hex Store in its original banner; I've got that image reprinted for you below, and it will also close out this post for us.

Image source

That wraps things up for this post - I hope you all enjoyed it! Thanks again to Mike B. for sending in this great content; please let him know in the comments if you liked it and/or if you have any additional information to share :)  Also, if any of you are interested in creating your own contributor post, remember that our inbox is always open at midsouthretailblog [at] gmail [dot] com. Until next time... have fun exploring the retail world wherever you are!

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