Neon Marketplace, which operates seven locations in New England, recently announced new leadership. Adi Dhandhania has taken the helm as CEO of the Cranston, R.I.-based convenience store chain. He brings a background in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and leadership to the role.
He was previously the chief operating officer for North America at Bally’s Interactive, and prior to his time there he held different leadership roles at Brightstar Corp. He also has experience working in family-owned c-stores.
CStore Decisions spoke with Dhandhania to learn about his plans as new CEO of Neon and how he can help further the growth of the chain in the c-store space.
CStore Decisions: What drew you to Neon Marketplace?
Adi Dhandhania: I actually was one of the investors when Neon started originally. I would say I have a family background in convenience stores, so I saw that something like Neon was coming to New England, where I saw the need for food, fuel and convenience all to converge in one location. Because that’s what I see the future of this industry to be.
And looking at the build that these stores would have in the renderings, I was just excited to say that this is much needed in the area. And we (had been) missing this opportunity, and we would be the first of its kind for that space.
So it was an exciting opportunity to invest in.
CSD: How will your past experiences leading up to this role serve you now?
AD: I’ve spent a lot of time in the M&A space. Prior to Neon, my most current employment was with Bally’s. I spent a lot of time in media, retail, sports betting, gaming, etc. And I have been through numerous sorts of businesses of all sizes and shapes and have had the opportunity to put them together, scale them, grow them and create value. So that aspect of it is super exciting for me.
And I see the same here at Neon where we’re starting out. Bally Interactive was a small startup. We started with a small concept and then we built a giant corporation behind it, and it was a function of growth both organically and inorganically. Taking that into Neon is super exciting — that we’ll be able to build something which is a startup in New England. It’s a little more than a startup now with so many stores popping up, and we’re growing and expanding these.
CSD: How will you continue to help Neon thrive?
AD: We have new stores that have opened up. My plan is to operationalize these stores so they are performing well, and we will have to reevaluate what our growth plans are in the area. Now that we’ve built four different types of stores (an express store, a travel center and two prototype stores), we have a very good sense of what format is best suited for the market and best suited for what we think we want to do here. So that, alongside operationalization of the stores, will give us a good pathway ahead of how to think about the future with the current stores and new stores that we may contemplate embarking on.
CSD: What are you most excited for with the position, and how has the transition been so far?
AD: The transition’s been great. Coming into a business at the ground level is always what I find exciting, and Neon presents that to me. I would say there’s an opportunity not only to build on the foundations that were laid in Neon prior to me joining, but also there’s a lot of cool things we can do because the infrastructure is there. It’s already in place, and we’ve built this store with a big vision.
We’ve already implemented some programs that we are super excited about. One of those is a 98-cent coffee program that we just launched in June. And this is for any size. Any size coffee, any size fountain or frozen drinks are also at 98 cents.
We’ve done that and then we’ve come up with a new menu for food and very competitive prices. So having a store like ours, which is beautiful looking, where you have a very good food offering at competitive prices, at good quality, alongside being able to buy merchandise products and either charging your cars if you have electric cars or buying fuel, becomes the true one-stop shop where customers want to go and be.
CSD: Where do you think the convenience store industry is heading for the future?
AD: My view is that food, convenience, fuel will all converge. Food has been an area that many retailers in the convenience store space have talked about. You’ve seen many large companies implement it. I think that gives you fair indication that fast-casual dining will end up being within convenience stores. There will be a convergence of that coming into the future.