Skip to content
Business
Link copied to clipboard

Where Wawa and Sheetz go head-to-head

A visit to Wawa and Sheetz stores in Bethlehem, one of the few places in Pennsylvania where the convenience-store chains compete, finds both committed partisans and practical choices.

A visit to Wawa and Sheetz stores in Bethlehem, one of the few places in Pennsylvania where the convenience-store chains compete, finds both committed partisans and practical choices.

"I use them both," said limo driver Bob Stahley, gassing up at the Sheetz on Schoenersville Road in Bethlehem, across the road and just up the hill from the Wawa. "I like Wawa's soft pretzels. But this side of the road is on the way to New York."

"They copy each other," said Charles Beegle, in a Pirates cap, in his Cable Service Co. truck. "I'm partial to Sheetz. Breakfast, I like their burritos. Lunch, I like their turkey hoagies. And for dinner Sheetz pizza's pretty good. But you know, I'm from Altoona."

Bonnie Frantz and Betty Howard have worked at the Wawa in nearby Whitehall Township since it opened 25 years ago. Don't ask Howard, the shift manager, about that red chain. "I went to the one in Reading one time," she said. "I looked around. I bought a bottled soda and left. I just don't trust a store that's not Wawa."

"I pass the Sheetz to come here," said one of Howard's regulars, Jim Schuck, who drives a heating-and-cooling maintenance truck. "I'm from New York, and I'm used to delis with fresh-cut cold cuts."

These are regulars. Wawa sandwich builder Lynn Koehler pointed to security guard Gerald Deetz. "He'll get a Junior, with sausage and egg, not toasted, add oregano," she predicted.

Deetz nodded, and smiled: "They pretty much know me here."

- Joseph N. DiStefano