Dive Brief:
- QuikTrip acquired its first convenience store in Kentucky last year and is expected to open the location in 2025, Jason Morgan, principal for Cornerstone Commercial Realty, which coordinated the purchase, confirmed to C-Store Dive.
- The property will be a travel center in Elizabethtown, about 45 miles south of Louisville, according to QuikTrip’s website. Once built, it will be directly across the street from a RaceTrac as well as a Marathon-branded gas station.
- This marks the third time this year QuikTrip has revealed plans to enter a new market, following news that it was developing locations in Nevada and Florida.
Dive Insight:
QuikTrip has been laser-focused on its remote travel centers since debuting the format in 2020. According to the retailer’s website, it has about 135 travel centers across nearly 20 states. Most of these locations are about 8,200 square feet and feature QuikTrip’s prepared foods concept, QT Kitchens, which offers meals across all dayparts, ranging from veggie breakfast scrambles and biscuits to barbecue brisket, chicken and pulled pork sandwiches.
Morgan said construction on the site in Elizabethtown “has either begun or is getting ready to begin.” Local newspaper The News-Enterprise reported last week that work on the site has begun.
The travel center will be located at the corner of Kentucky State Road 61 and U.S. Highway 31, according to blueprints from QuikTrip’s website. Morgan said QuikTrip will be building out “an internal road” on the property that will “serve as the balance of the acreage.”
Morgan said he doesn't know exactly when in 2025 QuikTrip plans to open the travel center, but that he assumes it’ll be later in the year.
A spokesperson from QuikTrip did not respond by press time when reached to comment on the company’s expansion into Kentucky.
Founded in 1958, Tulsa, Oklahoma-based QuikTrip operates around 1,000 convenience stores across 17 states and employs more than 31,000 people.
