Wawa is testing sushi in the Philly suburbs. I drove 23 miles to try it

The phrase “gas station sushi” is enough to make some stomachs churn.

Not for Wawa.

The Delaware County-based convenience store chain has been quietly testing pre-made sushi rolls at select stores since midsummer, based on customer TikTok videos.

Found in the refrigerated grab-and-go cases among such items as deli meat pinwheels and Buffalo chicken wraps, the rolls are sold under the name Sushi Soku and made by the company Hissho Sushi, a prepared-sushi distributor with products in 2,500 stores across the U.S., including supermarkets and airports.

A red sticker on each container advertises the sushi as “made fresh and delivered daily.” To some online, it sounds like a threat.

“We should’ve stopped at egg rolls. What is this?” said Media-based food influencer the Delco Filipino in a TikTok posted on July 27. The first publicly documented Wawa sushi encounter, their video has been watched more than 206,000 times.

“I love Wawa as much as the next girl, but I would never in my life get sushi” there, said Philly-based content creator Alexa Green in a video with over 51,000 views.

“It’s still a gas station, people. Let’s not,” wrote one commenter. “They need to stay in their lane,” wrote another. “I want a hoagie from 2010.”

Some were more optimistic: It couldn’t be worse than Wawa’s three different attempts at pizza or whatever they sell at Sheetz.

A spokesperson for Wawa confirmed via email that the chain is currently testing six cooked sushi rolls from Hissho Sushi’s Sushi Soku brand in select stores. They declined to share when the pilot began or the locations of participating stores, saying only that Wawa regularly tests products near their corporate campus in Delaware County “for speed in gaining feedback.”

“The initial response [to the sushi] is very favorable,” the spokesperson wrote, while also declining to share the criteria used to reach that conclusion. A representative for Hissho Sushi declined to answer questions about the partnership.

There have been confirmed sushi sightings at Wawas in Media and West Chester. Employees at the Wawas at 750 N. Pottstown Pike in Exton and 970 Baltimore Pike in Glen Mills confirmed over the phone that their stores are selling sushi.

While the “gas station sushi” label certainly applies here, the sushi is also technically supermarket sushi: Hissho Sushi supplies pre-packaged rolls to Sprouts Farmers Markets and Giant grocery stores throughout the Philly region, often under the Hissho name or their Oumi Sushi label. The Hissho Sushi rep also declined to answer questions about what, if anything, differentiates the Sushi Soku line carried in Wawas from the ones already available in supermarkets.

Is it the quality? Is it the flavor? Is it a secret third thing that I could only discover by driving 23 miles from Fishtown to Delco to find out?

With all of these questions swirling, I did what I had to do: I ate the Wawa sushi.

When I pulled up to the Wawa at 435 Baltimore Ave. (which happens to sell gas) the sushi stuck out like, well, seafood at a place that sells hoagies, pretzels, and lukewarm-yet-delicious bags of fried ravioli.

As part of the pilot, selected Wawas are carrying Philadelphia rolls, vegetable rolls, spicy shrimp crunch rolls, and three different kinds of California rolls (traditional, spicy, and crunchy). Each costs upwards of $9 and comes with eight individual pieces of sushi, wasabi, ginger, and a soy sauce packet. Chopsticks were nowhere to be found.

I opted for the Philadelphia roll (duh) and the spicy shrimp crunch roll because I wanted both spice and crunch. Sitting outside, I ate them as I imagined Wawa intended: with my bare hands and a creamsicle-flavored energy drink to wash it down.

The Philly roll had seen better days. Stuffed with a glob of cream cheese, imitation crab, and avocado well past its prime, it was shoddily assembled, with the sushi filling hanging out of some pieces. It was oddly flavorless, save for the feeling of mushy avocado mixing with cream cheese.

“This,” I said incredulously to the friend who joined me, “would never happen at Wegmans.” He agreed.

The spicy shrimp crunch roll was fine. Composed of a mayo-and-Sriracha shrimp salad with avocado, the roll comes topped with what Hissho Sushi refers to as tempura puffs. It was mildly spicy. It was mildly crunchy. Perhaps that’s all you can hope for from a gas station.

We didn’t finish either of them. Then, we made the 40-minute drive back home, both a little hungry and deeply cognizant of the effort we put in to track it down.

Wawa has shed its humble roots as a Delco dairy farm to become a convenience store behemoth with 1,200 stores in 14 states, with plans to open 600 more by 2030.

Getting there, however, has involved doing things few self-respecting Philly businesses would. They’re making bad pizza. They’re using our mascots to promote smoothies that are actually milkshakes. They sold $40 branded bucket bags that were only available in New Jersey stores. They’re even letting employees debase hoagies by calling them “subs.”

None of these things feel necessary, and none feel authentic to Wawa, whose superpower is the fact that it’s ordinary in the best possible way.

Wawa is the place I get a pretzel from to break up a bad day at work. It is the place where I get a hoagie on the way to a Phillies tailgate after I realize I forgot to eat. It is the place where I order mac ’n’ cheese after a night out and the cashier tells me to get home safe.

It will never, under any circumstances, be the place where you should buy sushi.