These new fangled Wawa stores are a great improvement over the last generation small box iteration with too small parking areas, and limited prepared food options. The 21st Century variation are at least 2,500 square feet, with gas pumps outside and elaborate food kitchen and computer aided ordering system able to please even the most picky pallette. The coffee hasn't changed much, but then again, it was darn good back in the day, and remains so.
But, despite the impressive modernization, these roadside way stations are far from perfect, and actually create some problems that didn't exist before. This facility on Parkway Avenue in Ewing, NJ, offers obvious examples of this evolution.
Access is only through a side street and a too narrow long driveway off to the side in front. At a significant intersection, it makes for challenging traffic entering from Parkway or exiting from the rear of the property. Too, there isn't enough parking around the building to accommodate all the folks going inside for food and drink. Two things therefore happen; first, people are encouraged to leave their vehicles at the gas pumps while they shop within, and second, others park illegally wherever they can, hoping not to cause a park rage incident. I've seen one such confrontation, and it wasn't pretty.
This friction point is exacerbated within by understaffed kitchen help causing back up in food prep and lots of people milling about with receipts waiting for their numbers to be called. It's a beautiful industrial kitchen, but whenever I am there, several food stations are without preparers, while one or two areas over backed up to the max. So, people wait, while many cars are interfering with traffic flow outside, and people can't get gasoline because abandoned looking vehicles clog the gas islands.
Bottom line, the store is too big for the lot it occupies, leaving too few parking spots. Greedy developers clearly oversold their prowess as designers of business flow, and the undermanned planning commissions approved the plan without adequate analysis. The internals should work, but if management fails to adapt to reality, there will never be enough workers on site to handle the crush inhouse caused by poor planning on the outside and shift manpower shortages.
This is how old problems reemerge in the new world. Poor planning and management is timeless, and in some cases, inevitable.
PS. The chicken salad on wheat torpedo was quite good. read more