7/11 South King Street is pretty clean but has a homeless problem. Not all the time, but more than other places and not managed well. I've had some uncomfortable experiences of being solicited as I walked through the door or while standing in line. For these reasons I tend to avoid this location. Like others in this area I've become accustomed to the growing homeless population and would like to make appropriate concessions for them, but I think it would be in 7/11's best interest to draw better boundaries: no homeless right next to the door (eight feet away is okay), no solicitation within the store by any means.
As far as convenient stores go I much prefer Longs South King Street overall (Longs has a security guard and while the homeless can make trouble it's not that often), but 7/11 does have unique and valuable items that I wish I felt more comfortable going there to buy. For instance pretty good manapua and garlic chicken onigiri. It's tough to find hot, cheap snacks in this area. Sometimes you want something hot and not refrigerated and 7/11 delivers.
As a convenient store, really, this 7/11 does have great items. Unique soft drinks like a yuzu drink not even Nijiya Market has, lavender sparkling water and etc. Also there is a pretty stellar even though relatively small selection of essentials, like I found Shoo Goo there. I definitely would go more given the chance.
Even though I kind of dislike this location for the reasons given I will say it offers very competitive goods especially in the hot foods department. I do like coming by for a hot coffee here and it's cheap, too, as well as tasty with a good selection of different types of coffee bean tastes and creamers. While there are some things to improve I don't think this 7/11 is in any danger at all in going out of business any time soon. The actual location is great--from riding passenger it seems very easy to turn in and out of the parking lot which isn't the biggest by any means but quite sizable and well situated. I have been dropped off at this location many times and have met people here as well and I have heard it is convenient. I don't particularly like coming to this 7/11 but I can't deny that it is a very good addition to this neighborhood in terms of value and convenience. For that I give a solid 3/5 Stars.
For most things Longs is often cheaper but it can't really beat 7/11 for the hot foods or if you need the gas. There is a 76 gas station right next to a McDonalds down South King Street though, but it's probably more out of the way than most want to go. And anyway sometimes you really want a manapua.
In other notes:
Staff is pretty lackluster but not bad. I've met worse.
I agree the slushee machine is often not working properly (sometimes the consistency is overly liquid and thin) but the soda machine is worth a look for the Vitamin Water.
This 7/11 is pretty unique in having a self-serve copy machine which I was kind of excited about but I tried it once and it was out of service. 7/11 was about the only printing place open on New Years Day and I was pretty bummed it wasn't working. Usually FedEx is open 24 hours though so it's not really an issue, just a disappointment. read more