First opened in 2015 as a Super Wawa with gas, the Bellmawr Wawa on Creek Road reopened this morning after a full interior remodel, making it the first store of this new prototype. For today only this Creek Road store is offering free coffee (Friday Nov 22, 2024)!
The new design offers a more modern looking shopping experience… but clearly the underlying theme is a more spacious layout with better workflow for both customers and food preparation staff, tied to not only what customers are purchasing but also HOW they are purchasing.
While this is the only store with this new design, we can assume that based on it’s success we see more remodels to come!
Honestly the prior store layout felt very cluttered, difficult to move around and just a poor “flow”. Previously there was minimal space for customers to comfortably wait the few minutes it sometimes takes to receive their fresh prepared food order, or to even know where to pick it up!
It seems this new design solves all of those challenges.
The Bellmawr Wawa absolutely feels more open today but is also brighter, and changes out the classic earth-tones color palette for a more modern white, grey and charcoal interior.
But it seems to me this new design is really about Wawa catching up to today’s customer shopping patterns, where a larger percentage of Wawa revenue is coming from the prepared food area… and the redesign puts a big focus on improving that experience.
Then also factor in that many customers today prefer the self-checkout kiosks, you start wondering “why do they need to allocate so much space in the store for cash registers that never get used? Can’t that space be used in better ways?”
Bellmawr Wawa Checkout Changes
On your next visit to the Bellmawr Wawa you’ll be surprised by how much more open space there is, particularly in front of the prepared-food order pickup area and the upgraded cashier area.
Like most Wawas this Bellmawr store had multiple checkout areas. There is always the one in the far corner that needs to be operated by employees as it’s the cigarette area. But then the Bellmawr store had a second island of cash registers that honestly I can’t remember the last time we’re ever used… other than a hastily done retrofit to support self checkout.
Not to go too far off the tracks here, but consider the other Wawa stores that have those very large round island of cash register stations such as Sicklerville Road store or the Doo-Wop store in Wildwood. When was the last time you’ve ever seen more than 2 (of the four) registers in use?
Back to the Bellmawr remodel, first they removed that separate unused “island” section of cash registers, and expanded the far corner cash register area (where the cigarettes are located)… which is now a crescent-shape cash register counter which is much longer and provides multiple checkout registers.
They’ve also consolidated all of the refrigerated “to-go” items in a large unit directly next to this register.
This immediately opens the store up to give a better flow for customers.
Wawa then also increased the number of self-checkout kiosks to four, by placing them along the front glass wall of the store.
Which then leads to the third change in this “checkout” area. While the store still has the same exterior entrance as before, there were two interior doorways for the foyer area. The original thought being that one door would be allocated for customers coming in and the other would be for customers leaving the store. I never thought that flowed regardless because the foyer area would get jammed up at the exterior doors.
So today in the new Bellmawr remodel they have removed the interior set of “exit” doors… freeing up space in that front corner for the self checkout area.
Food Preparation, Pickup and Beverages
So an interesting thing about the new food preparation area is it feels smaller, but then at the same time it is absolutely better designed for customers and the staff.
For decades Wawa seemed to believe that everything needed to be an open kitchen design protruding into the store so customers could see everything going on. Well when hoagies were your only food item that worked, but today with the expanded menu and additional equipment (such as pizza ovens) the whole food preparation area needed a revamp.
Which means the segment of the kitchen space doesn’t all need to be out front inside the store. If anything it was frustrating to customers also as you’d have to walk around the big curved kitchen space looking for a kiosk or trying to find out where your order is!
So it appears that the food prep area is now divided in two sections with the front open area focused on hoagies and shakes/smoothies, with an allocated section behind that for other food prep needs.
Simply it removes the large food prep area which in other stores protruded far into the main store space and frees up a lot of space.
And today for customer interactions the front of the Bellmawr Wawa food prep area is divided into two very logical sections; Order and Pickup.
The right half of the food preparation area is for the kiosk ordering terminals, all nicely in one area… in a row. You no longer have to walk 25-feet around the curved protruding kitchen area looking for an available ordering screen! Revolutionary!
The likely bigger change is the pick-up area. How about a 12-foot wide dedicated pickup area that is clearly marked with signage!
That alone is a huge improvement. I remember one of the first times I ordered a Wawa milkshake, as I stood at the small center pickup area I had no idea that for several minutes my milkshake was waiting (melting) at the far end of the counter in its own makeshift pick up location.
Well the Bellmawr Wawa makes it very clear to everyone where orders are picked up.
In fact, not only does it offer the large 12 foot wide and clearly marked order pickup area, it’s segregated into 3 sections; delivery, mobile, kiosk.
The delivery and mobile sections have shelves above the counter space which would seem to be so that employees can just place your order there, and when you (or your deliver service) show up for your order, you can find it there waiting. It’s like we are living in the future!
Compare that to the new Wawa in Washington Township (5-points) that opened just a year ago and it has that little center window where all of the orders have to go through and you have to bug an employee “I am 522, toasted bagel”. In business that is called a choke point, and it seems this Bellmawr prototype remodel found a solution to the problem.
And the third area of this food prep remodel is the ever important self-serve drink space featuring coffee and fountain drinks… which is located to the right of the order kiosk.
The coffee urns are an all new digital design which worked very easily for me when I grab my free coffee this morning.
These digital coffee urns appear to support the same number of coffee options but in a smaller space with each screen offering three different choices such as Colombian, Regular, Hazelnut all from a single machine.
For the coffee “creamer” preparation area the model is mostly unchanged with the separate small island that offers half and half, sugars and more.
Overall I think it’s a really attractive redesign and also very smartly done to improve the customer and staff experience.
Likely I’m the only one to analyze it to this level, ha!
But if I could put an idea out there for the Wawa team, while we’re in the cold winter months how about heading down to that famous Wildwood Doo-Wop Wawa location when it’s basically empty of customers in the winter, and do a similar remodel there? That store is crazy in the summer, and this new design would likely be a huge help!
Links and Location
Wawa Bellmawr
112 Edgewood Ave (At Creek Rd)
Bellmawr NJ