Dive Brief:
- Rebel Convenience Stores has added alcohol delivery to its array of offerings, becoming the first major c-store chain offering alcohol delivery in Las Vegas, according to a LinkedIn post from Vroom Delivery earlier this week.
- Alcohol delivery is already live at four Rebel stores in Las Vegas, with nine more set to be added soon, according to John Nelson, CEO and co-founder of Vroom.
- Rebel isn’t the only major c-store chain that has added alcohol delivery this year, with Sheetz announcing in July that it would add beer delivery in its home state of Pennsylvania.
Dive Insight:
While delivery has become more ubiquitous among c-stores, alcohol delivery has been less common, often because states have different laws regulating the service.
“While Las Vegas may be sin city, getting approval to deliver alcohol is no small feat,” Vroom noted in the LinkedIn post. “Both the retail and the courier service need special permits and the online ordering platform must conform to strict requirements about where and how the order can be delivered.”
These requirements stipulate that both Rebel and the courier, which is DoorDash in this case, must be licensed with the city, Nelson noted. Plus, they can only deliver alcohol within the Las Vegas city limits, so the system needs to be set up to deny orders to locations outside of that area.
This is the latest in a series of enhancements Rebel has made to its offering over the past couple years. Rebel added first-party delivery in 2023 and augmented that with third-party aggregation earlier this year, according to Nelson. Then in September it debuted a chicken-focused QSR, Hatch Chicken Company, at a new store in Las Vegas.
