To me, this is an enchanted little store. In our five weeks visiting Louisville, it has become a…read morehome away from home - a happy anchor to which we return almost every day.
The parking lot is very roomy - I never have trouble finding a spot for my big camper van. The store is bright and the aisles are wide. Products are laid out in a logical, convenient way that make it easy to find your way through the store.
(In contrast, the Speedway convenience store up at the north end of Bardstown Road is relative chaos. The creamers are not near the coffee, everything is a mess, the parking lot is a nightmare and the staff are only occasionally friendly.)
This place has the best sound system and best music I have ever encountered in a convenience store. They usually have their radio tuned to KISS FM, which has a sister station back in Asheville North Carolina, our home for the last 16 years.
Back in Asheville, the KISS-FM station plays country music - which is appropriate for that town, smack dab in the middle of the Appalachian mountains. In this more urban environment, the KISS station plays 80s and 90s pop music - most of which I remember and which usually has me dancing through the store.
This store is a happy place! It's not just me - many of the other customers seem to get happy when they walk through the door. For me and my little dog - and probably for some other customers - that has a little bit to do with air-conditioning in the sweltering Louisville summer.
I have a hard time getting my little service dog Panchita to leave the air-conditioning - and she is such just a little Chihuahua love bucket who charms all the staff and all the customers. I think at this point she is almost the mascot of the store. When Bobbi is on duty behind the cash register, she does not even bother to greet me as I come through the door. She just yells out, "Hi Pancho!"
They have the most high tech coffee service I have seen in a convenience store. Those two machines brew your coffee fresh from beans as you wait. They also have fresh and pre-brewed cold-brew coffee, and all manner of hot and iced tea.
They have a refrigerated beer cave where Pancho and I both go sometimes to cool off.
The staff person we have dealt with the most is a delightful young guy named Ethan. When there is nobody at his register or when I follow him outside for his little 15-minute break, we talk about everything under the sun: life, love, politics, religion - you name it, we go there. I enjoy the freshness of his youthful perspective on things and he pretends to give a nod to the "wisdom" (and wackiness) of this old man.
There tends to be a big staff turnover problem in convenience stores all through the southeast and probably the whole US. You just can't keep people in a job where are you are paying way less than a living wage. The Circle K chain is paying more than most convenience stores, but I think the staff stay in their job mostly because they have a good time at work.
New staff people tend to call in more often or just not show up for work - and they are often poorly trained and don't know how to handle even a slightly complicated transaction.
I had a big argument with the manager of a Shell convenience store back in Weaverville, North Carolina, when he told me that any items I bought with my Visa card could not be returned. When I told him I did not think the Visa people would agree with that, he said it was just the policy of the store and to either accept it or get out.
When I was not willing to accept either of those options, we had a big argument - that ended in him acknowledging that the reason they would not take a return on items you bought by Visa was that they did not know how to handle that kind of transaction in their cash register. When I told him that his incompetence was not a legitimate reason to violate Visa return policies, he called the police on me and had me banned from the store for life.
(North Carolina and Kentucky are both "right to serve" states, which actually means that the owner or manager has the right to ban anybody from the store for life without giving a reason.
The balance of power between rich owners and average customers is way out of whack in this country. Something needs to be done about it.)
I have never had any kind of conflict with any manager in this store. The one day I attempted to talk to Eric, the head manager, he was a little abrupt with me and did not want to talk. But Bobbi told me later that he was under extreme deadline pressure that day - and is actually an extremely competent manager and very good to work for.
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