bY Jennifer Kohlhepp, Staff Writer
For 40 years Wawa has worked its way into the fabric of the Princeton community.
Caroline Black is just one local resident who has been going to the convenience store since she was a child. These days, she frequents Wawa in the morning to buy coffee and breakfast before catching the train and late nights for candy.
"It’s a little sad that the old Wawa is gone," Ms. Black said. "It was full of memories and looked like the Alamo."
Ms. Black reminisced about her former "meet up and hang out" place during the grand opening of the new Wawa next to the new Princeton Train Station. The store, part of Princeton University’s Arts & Transit Project that is still under construction, replaces the legacy Wawa store at Princeton University.
During the landmark event, Mayor Liz Lempert said, "This is no ordinary Wawa. It would be more aptly be named Wawow."
The 7,500-square-foot modernized store has a green roof, upscale public restrooms, two ATMs, a "food forward" design and besides the regular fare carries specialties like kale and quinoa salad.
"It is cool that this Wawa is bigger and has more products," Ms. Black said. "And, this is the most elaborate grand opening of a convenience store I have ever seen."
The grand opening featured Wawa’s mascot Wally Goose, free coffee and hoagie samples, a celebration of Wawa’s longstanding partnership with the Eden Autism Services by honoring two of its Princeton store’s longest-tenured associates — Ari Shiner and Martin Maccarone — and a charitable hoagie building competition between local police and firefighters.
Wawa’s director of store operations, Jim Shortall, discussed Wawa’s culture and values and introduced the "Wawa Through the Ages" parade, which visually highlighted Wawa’s key milestones. The parade featured associates wearing oversized foam-board photos from Wawa’s history, including Wawa beginning as an iron factory in New Jersey in 1803, Wawa becoming a a dairy in 1902, Grahame Wood opening the first Wawa Food Market in Folsom, Pennsylvania, in 1964 and Wawa store managers beginning to brew and sell fresh coffee along with sandwiches and hoagies in 1975.
Today, Wawa operates more than 600 stores in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virgina. The private company has 22,000 employees and sells more than 80 million hoagies, 195 million cups of coffee to more than 400 million customers annually, according to the Wawa Fun Fact Sheet.
"We are thrilled to celebrate our 40th anniversary in the Princeton community with this brand new store, which furthers our commitment to fulfill customers’ lives every day through its uniquely designed features and offerings," Wawa’s President and CEO Chris Gheysens said. "We are really excited to be here and to be part of the Princeton community and Princeton University."
Mr. Gheysens said Wawa is more about people than making hoagies and pouring coffee.
"Our people is what makes us special and what connects us to the community," he said. "It’s about friends and neighbors serving their friends and neighbors and finding that opportunity to make them have a better day."
The event concluded with a charitable "Bravest vs. the Finest" hoagie building competition, as the Princeton Fire Department and the Princeton Police Department faced off in a battle of skill and sandwich making expertise. Each team had three minutes to build as many hoagies as they could in the traditional Wawa way. While the firefighters won the challenge with 22 hoagies to the police officers’ 21 and earned a giant trophy, Wawa presented both teams with $1,000 each to give to charities they chose to honor prior to the event. The police will donate their reward to the Princeton PBA and the firefighters will donate their reward to Susan G. Komen Foundation.
When asked how she would summarize her feelings about Wawa, Brittany Werkheiser of South Brunswick, whose husband Mike has worked for the Princeton location for the past eight months, said," Wawa is really a symbol of community."
