CStore Decisions is recognizing Weigel’s with a Best Foodservice Launch Award for its $6 W menu. The new value menu rolled out in November 2024 and features the quality, variety and value customers today have come to expect.
The menu features a $6 fixed price point across seven combo meals, which at launch included Combo 1: Sausage biscuit, ring doughnut and medium coffee; Combo 2: Sausage, egg and cheese biscuit and 12-ounce Red Bull; Combo 3: Two slices of Breakfast Pizza and 20-ounce Pepsi; Combo 4: Classic chicken biscuit and 11-ounce Tropicana juice; Combo 5: Two slices of pizza with a 20-ounce Coke; Combo 6: Hot dog, Doritos and 20-ounce Aquafina; and Combo 7: Two roller grill items, Better Day chips and medium fountain drink.
Today, 74 of Weigel’s 84 locations in Tennessee currently feature the $6 W menu. The only stores not yet participating are legacy locations that are in the process of being remodeled to accommodate kitchens. Once the kitchens are up and running, those stores are expected to also feature Weigel’s new value menu.
Highlighting Existing Value
The inspiration for Weigel’s new $6 W value menu came during a meeting regarding recent market analysis results.
“C-stores in general have realized that not only are we competing with each other, but we’re really competing with the quick-service restaurants (QSRs) of the world today,” said Beth Hoffer, VP of foodservice, Weigel’s.
As a result, Weigel’s completes market analysis not only against its c-store competitors but also against QSRs, which are heavily focused on promoting value menus today. As Weigel’s discussed the value menu trend internally, the company realized it also had a value menu — it just wasn’t actively promoting it.
“Everything that’s in our three-tier warmer that we sell off the roller grills is less than $6,” Hoffer shared as an example. “We don’t have a single item in there that isn’t less than $6, and we have a lot of two-fors.”
The team decided to further develop a specific value menu by partnering with some of its vendors and leveraging bundle offerings with items that customers can’t get from a QSR, such as a combo meal that includes an energy drink. Because Weigel’s runs its own proprietary food program, it was able to move quickly in pairing its proprietary offerings that are made fresh in its kitchens with snack and beverage offerings from its vendors.
“The economy is not what it was three years ago or four years ago,” acknowledged Hoffer. “I’m not saying it’s awful by any means, but I do think that consumers are very smart about how they spend their money, where they choose to spend their money and on what.”
While Weigel’s may have always had value offerings, a critical realization was that it hadn’t been sharing that messaging with customers. A key to launching the $6 W menu was to start broadcasting the value menu to customers through a marketing campaign — highlighting it on its mobile app, social media pages, billboards and via its vendor partners.
“One of the things we found out is that a lot of people come to our stores and buy things and leave, and then the second or third stop after us is to a restaurant to get food at the drive-through,” Hoffer said. “They’re picking up food, but they’re definitely coming to us first for what we have that the QSRs don’t have.”
Leveraging that information, Weigel’s is working to let customers know they now have combo meal deals too, complete with items like energy drinks, so customers can make one stop instead of two.
“Then it’s just making sure that we continue to have really good, high-quality food that I personally think is way better than McDonald’s or Wendy’s, and so that’s how we’ll compete with them, is just having better food available quick,” Hoffer said.
Already, customers are responding to the new menu. The chain saw at minimum a 7% lift on the value items across the board, plus a 24% increase on its best-selling item, Combo 7.
Weigel’s is committed to growing its value menu in 2025 with ongoing limited-time combos, as some vendor partners potentially move on and off the menu at the end of each promotional cycle to keep the menu fresh for customers. For example, in January, it introduced a combo featuring a piece of pizza, a 19.2-ounce Liquid Death and a 3.25-ounce Takis snack.
To continue to keep prices affordable, Weigel’s has also been speaking with its manufacturers regarding strategies for reducing costs.
“We’re talking about what our cost was prior to COVID-19 and then what the increase has been since then. … We’re asking them to sharpen their pencils and look at (where costs can be reduced),” Hoffer said.
Weigel’s is then diligent about passing on any savings directly to the customers.
“I think our customers as a whole, they’re definitely struggling now (financially),” noted Hoffer. “We’re going to do everything we can to keep prices low to where we continue to be a good option for them to shop with us.”
The new $6 W menu is a key part of that commitment to highlight value for its customer base.
