I like Casey's convenience stores quite a bit.
They tend to be bright and well laid-out, with broad aisles. They have super-modern coffee machines that brew your coffee fresh from newly ground beans. Their pizza and hot sandwiches are made fresh right there in the store, instead of being brought in by a truck from some central distribution place. They have some wonderful self-labeled products like ice tea with the same ingredients as Twinleaf iced tea (real sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup) at half the price. They seem in general to choose towards products with clean, chemical-free ingredients.
Staff in general tend to be really friendly and helpful - and very welcoming of my service dog Pancho.
I never found a Casey's store in North Carolina, where I lived for the last 18 years. Nor did I see any in Louisville Kentucky, where I spent the summer.
I encountered my first Casey's store in Indiana, when I started to go north through Indiana up to Chicago.
I was so charmed by that store that I tend to seek them out.
I was really disappointed that I never saw a Casey's store in my six weeks in Chicago. 7-Eleven, the dominant convenient store chain in Chicago, has much less friendly and helpful service - and relatively barbaric coffee service.
I found my first post-Chicago Casey's almost immediately when I ran out to the western suburbs of Chicago. And I have been really pleased to find that there are lots of them in Iowa and also down in Missouri.
So, when I left the Walmart in Hannibal Missouri this morning, I searched to see if there was a Casey's around - and was delighted to find that there was one just a half mile away.
As I was about to get out of the car at the Casey's store, I noticed that the Yelp review that popped up on the Google listing was a real hatchet-job. It was actually the only review that has been posted on Yelp for this store.
The reviewer said that she had never felt such a need to post a review for a gas station convenience store, but was extremely upset about this store. One of the bathrooms wasn't working and the cashier was rude. She closed by saying that she'll never go back to another Casey's.
I was impressed to see that Casey G, the owner of the chain, responded very directly and helpfully.
I got really defensive for one of my favorite convenience store chains and was inclined to dismiss that review.
But I'm afraid the store still has lots of problems.
All three of the high-tech coffee machines was down, so there was effectively no coffee to be had in the store. I have encountered certain blends of coffee being out - and have seen other instances where one of the machines had the error message saying that the grounds needed to be emptied, but never have I seen more than one machine off-line.
I was ready to go away mad over a convenience store not having such a basic product, when I noticed that there was just one cashier and six people in line.
My experience with Casey's stores is that there usually are two cashiers and never a long line. I'm aware that there is a national crisis right now around staffing front-line customer service jobs, but I have seen no signs of this phenomenon aflicting other Casey's stores in Iowa or Missouri.
As I was taking a picture of the long line, the woman who was working in the kitchen came out and was immediately very friendly to my dog. I pointed out to her the problem with the coffee service and she immediately jumped in to empty the grounds and get two of the three machines functioning again.
As I was fixing my coffee a young woman came out who seemed to be the store manager. I talked to her about the problems with the machines and she said that some of the blends are just not available because of distribution problems - which I realize is another crisis affecting the industry.
We had a nice conversation about the business of convenience stores. I myself staffed one full-time for a year about 15 years ago - and then went on to be a grocery store cashier at two national chains, for a total of seven years.
As I walked away from this conversation with this nice young woman, I wondered if she had noticed the very long line at checkout and why she hadn't staffed a cash register herself.
When I worked for the Greenlife store (now Whole Foods) in Asheville North Carolina - and then when I worked for the Earth Fare chain in Asheville- those two companies had a management culture where the store manager did everything.
They were very seldom in the office and tended to just jump in and help wherever help was needed. They would never hesitate to sweep up a mess or jump in and bag groceries. They mostly wore relatively casual long sleeve shirts, with the sleeves rolled up so they could do the work.
When I got out to my car, I took a better look at Jennifer P's Yelp review of the store. The Yelp system identified her as some kind of super-reviewer and now I had to take her damning review quite seriously. read more