Breaking news from around the world.
News that is American but has an international facet may also be posted here.
These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.
For US News, see the US News community.
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
I miss the nice and clean Family Mart and MiniStop convenience stores in Asia. I hope they can replicate and maintain the quality if they adapt the concept in the US.
-- but you've been to a 7-11, right? They are franchised, so maybe you have a good one, but some are rather sketchy. Though, to be fair: the super sketchy one a town over actually closed down before covid, so I may be painting with too broad a brush.
Yeah, the ones in Asia are franchised too. I’ve never been to a 7-11 in the US that I was comfortable staying more than a few minutes in. They are usually messy, have sketchy people, and I don’t trust the food. Complete opposite of convenience stores in Asia.
Growing up in New Jersey, where we had Wawa everywhere, 7-Eleven was the "dirt convenience store" like how some towns back then had the good mall and the dirt mall. I was shocked when I moved to another state and found out that 7-Eleven was considered the good convenience store.
But they will have to hire American workers.
I spent a bit of time living in Japan, and to this day, years later, I still frequently dream of visiting Japan and one of my top priorities being going to kombini (convenience stores). They're amazing. I hope 7-Eleven is able to transform the convenience store experience in the US into a kombini experience.
I'm Canadian but was surprised to recently see two types of onigiri in my local 7/11. I looked at it in shock, and then sighed because I would absolutely love that. But there's no way in hell I'm eating that from a gas station.
I would end up like Fry from Futurama, but instead of worms that make me smart, knowing my luck, I would get a parasite/illness that puts me in a coma lol.
After I looked at it, I walked over to the slurpee machines and grimaced at the thought of gas station sushi while noticing how the floors are perpetually sticky/ moist and nothing looks clean
I did, however, notice slurpee themed merch, and I'm tempted to buy a shirt
I'm just relieved they finally fucked off with the mobile checkout thing in Canada. They were pushing it so hard for a while there that I dreaded even going into the store. You couldn't get through checkout without four different employees wanting to explain it to you and asking, "Why not mobile checkout? But you get ten times the points! C'mon, try it!"
I did try it, too. Twice. The first time was confusing, unintuitive, and clunky. The second time was exactly like the first, except it didn't beep with I had finished paying and the woman at the counter had a heart attack thinking I was running out the door with stolen merchandise. By the time she checked everything and confirmed that I had, I decided those 10X points could fuck off.
2 buck hotdog & 5 buck sushi, lotto tickets and a diet coke big gulp for Jimbo