Street Corner is bringing together convenience, grocery and deli services with its newest stores.
Topeka, Kan.-based Street Corner has announced the opening of two new store locations, with one in Chattanooga, Tenn. and one in Jackson, N.J. These two new stores mark the chain’s 42nd and 43rd locations.
Street Corner’s store designs run the gamut from self-service office stores to mall stores to full-fledged gas stations with pump-side payment and delivery. The Chattanooga store is an “urban superette,” designed from the ground up to cater to dense population centers. It offers such amenities as a deli, salad bar and other fresh food offerings, and boasts the company’s latest technology, design and lighting elements.
“Following a generational exodus, people are coming back to the cities, particularly Millennials who want to live near where they work, dine and shop. But these mixed-use centers and city centers are often wastelands when it comes to traditional grocery stores,” said Peter La Colla, Street Corner’s CEO. “We’re catering to those built-in populations. Our urban superette market is the convergence of convenience, grocery and deli.”
The Chattanooga, Tenn. store adheres to that strategy. Billing itself as a “fresh market” the new Street Corner opened Aug. 22 in The Clemons, a historic building in the City Center that has been renovated to include a mix of apartment homes and retailers. Besides groceries and the usual convenience items, the store offers locally sourced pastries, chocolate, breads and coffee; espresso-style drinks; a curated collection of craft beers; unique jewelry; and flowers from a nearby florist. In addition, the store’s deli offers Boar’s Head meats and gourmet sandwiches. The health conscious and office workers alike can also take advantage of the only self-service salad bar in the center of Chattanooga, Tenn.
“The idea is to provide a true Chattanooga, Tenn. experience that reflects our community’s expertise in all we do, especially healthy living,” said franchise operations partner Elia Gouvitsa.
The urban superette is also a showcase of Street Corner’s latest technology. A grocery section that can be partitioned off when the convenience store closes, and self-checkout with fingerprint payment offer 24/7 accessibility to building residents. An app for online ordering and delivery will launch in October.
“From lunch deliveries to fresh flowers and custom-made baskets, we’ll be able to meet the needs of busy professionals in downtown,” said Gouvitsa.
The New Jersey store, a 196-square foot inline store, opened Sept. 9 in the food court of the Jackson Premium Outlets, a popular shopping destination in Ocean County, N.J. The store will cater to shoppers and employees with snacks, beverages, coffee, energy drinks and lottery tickets. It is the second store in New Jersey for owners Sameer Joshi and Himanshu Choksi; they opened a store in Rockaway Townsquare in Rockaway Township, N.J. in November 2014.
Founded in 1988, Street Corner today is the number one mall and specialty-based convenience store chain in the U.S. With more than 40 franchises in 16 states, ranging from traditional inline stores to freestanding stores with gas, Street Corner offers entrepreneurs multiple ways to build financial independence.
