QuikTrip |
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Official Site: QuikTrip.com
Wikipedia: QuikTrip |
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History
The following section is an excerpt from Wikipedia's QuikTrip page on 3 August 2020, text available via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
The QuikTrip Corporation, more commonly known as QuikTrip (QT), is an American chain of convenience stores based in Tulsa, Oklahoma that primarily operates in the Midwestern, Southern, and Southeastern United States as well as in Arizona.
The first QuikTrip was opened in 1958 in Tulsa by Burt Holmes and Chester Cadieux. The company expanded outside of Oklahoma in 1968, and started selling gasoline in 1971. Chester's son, Chet, Jr., is the current CEO.
In 2005, QuikTrip and Chevron were the first two retailers to earn a "Top Tier" rating from General Motors, BMW, Honda, Volkswagen, Audi, and Toyota. The "Top Tier" rating exceeds the United States Environmental Protection Agency's standards for gasoline additives.
QuikTrip was ranked as one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For. In January 2006, QT ranked No. 21, ninth among companies classified as "mid-size". In 2008, QT was ranked No. 27 on Fortune's Top 100 list. QuikTrip often uses this fact in recruiting new employees. QuikTrip also ranked No. 33 on Forbes magazine's list of largest private companies in 2016.
While driving through Dallas, Burt Holmes was intrigued by the success of 7-Eleven and decided to open a small grocery store in his hometown of Tulsa. He took on classmate Chester Cadieux as a partner in his planned venture. Holmes and Cadieux each invested $5,000, and three other investors put up $2,000 each for the venture.
The first QuikTrip store was opened in a Tulsa strip mall in 1958, which sold a limited selection of groceries with high prices for the convenience. The chain grew rapidly, opening its first store outside Tulsa in 1964, expanding to Missouri in 1968 and Iowa in 1974.
QuikTrip began to sell gasoline in 1971 as states legalized self-service stations. In the early 1970s, co-founder Cadieux eliminated slow-moving merchandise from the stores' inventory, such as canned vegetables, and stocked a larger quantity of items, priced low for high-volume sales, such as beer, soda, coffee, cigarettes, and candy. In 1976, it became one of the first convenience store chains to be open 24 hours a day. Also that year, it adopted its now-famous "QT" logo.
QuikTrip had its own branded goods marketed from the 1970s to the 1980s, including QT Beer—QT for "Quittin' Time". The ad campaign, "It's QT Time Again", would often show a dog named Lamar. The dog's owner was portrayed in television commercials by actor Ben Jones, who often asked the dog, "Ain't that right, Lamar?"
In 1987, Cadieux was the first inductee into the Convenience Store Hall of Fame and was noted for being the first to offer self serve fountain drinks, the first to design and offer a fast food module, the first to open a downtown convenience store, and the first to install personal computers in the stores and tie them to the company's mainframe.
In 1988, upon rapid expansions into the St. Louis and Atlanta markets, QuikTrip began a renovation of all stores, primarily replacing the earthtone exterior and interior with a bright red color scheme. The interior decor featured red countertops and a red quarry tile floor; almond tile on the walls interspersed with painted red sections of the walls to create contrast. Some gold trim maintained continuity from the previous decor. The company also took more care with landscaping around the store. By the early 1990s, QuikTrip began to offer fast foods and fountain beverages at its stores, being the first convenience store to offer a self-serve soda fountain and a self-serve coffee bar. Expensive advertising led the company to phase out the private label beer by this time.
In 1994, QuikTrip acquired the former Memorex/Telex Communications headquarters in Tulsa and remodeled part of the building for its Oklahoma division. In 2003, QuikTrip decided to consolidate all employees into one corporate campus in south Tulsa and sold the building to Community Care College.
In 2017, QuikTrip announced plans to expand into two additional markets in Texas, San Antonio and Austin. The first San Antonio store opened in October 2018, with three more locations opening in the following months.
| Date | Article | Author/Source |
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| 4 September 2018 | Man Pleads Guilty to Robbing Broken Arrow QuikTrip | U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Oklahoma |
| 20 December 2018 | Tulsa Man Sentenced to 13 Years in Federal Prison for Armed Robbery | U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Oklahoma |