Kwik Trip is in the business of selling gasoline, about as dull a commodity as they come. Yet the La Crosse, Wisconsin-based chain has turned the banal task of refueling into the driver’s equivalent of must-see TV. Kwik Trip has earned the title of Country’s Best Gas Station Brand seven years running, and cultivated an unlikely cult following in the process.

Road-warriors pilgrimage to Kwik Trip’s 900-plus locations in the Upper Midwest, with many more coming to Minnesota. Couples take bridal and prom photos in store aisles. And students send graduation-party invitations to company headquarters.

Musicians have been moved to compose a dance rap tune and a country ditty, “God Bless Kwik Trip,” in its honor. There are even Kwik Trip Missed Connections: personal ads for romantics who felt a spark at a station but failed to get a phone number.

Some fervent fans refuse to buy gas anywhere else. That includes Wisconsin Kwik Trip Enthusiast Club founder Mike Testa, who discovered the chain when he arrived in Milwaukee more than a decade ago. “Before long, I was stretching my tank beyond empty to get to the next Kwik Trip,” he said.

The Enthusiast Club, which operates independently of Kwik Trip, has 165,000 members who praise the clean bathrooms, friendly staff and favorite snacks that make the family-run chain their preferred pit stop. The secret to Kwik Trip’s success, it turns out, has less to do with fueling vehicles than bellies.

As Americans increasingly eat on the go and prioritize flexibility, gas-station convenience stores have upgraded their food offerings, from desperation to destination.

Two decades ago, when fuel-shop fare was mostly stale roller hot dogs, Kwik Trip evolved into a corner market-slash-fast-casual restaurant. Today, the stores are stocked with ready-to-eat fare (croissant sandwiches, Glazers doughnuts, nitro cold brew), affordable groceries (milk on sale for $3 a gallon, eggs for $1 a carton), and take-home meals (meatloaf, spicy chicken penne).

Among all freshly prepared food purchases — such as pizza slices, sandwiches and salads bought from grocery deli cases or quick-serve restaurants — about a quarter are now made at convenience stores. Which means that Midwesterners are eating a lot of meals from the gas station.

To young Wisconsinites especially, Kwik Trip sits among the Badger State’s pantheon of brats, cheese, beer and the Packers. And the company knowingly winks at its cultural-signifier status: What other gas station sells boxer shorts emblazoned with its famous bargain-priced bananas?

As Kwik Trip expands deeper into the North Star State, more Minnesotans are becoming “Trippers” too.

An evolving business

In 1965, Kwik Trip was one Eau Claire, Wis., convenience store. The business added a few more regional stores in the 1970s, when Donald Zietlow, a grocery wholesaler, became a partner. Over the following decades, Kwik Trip added gas pumps and more locations across the Midwest. (It uses the name Kwik Star in Iowa, Illinois and the Dakotas to avoid confusion with its rival, spelling-averse gas-chain QuikTrip.)

In 2000, the Zietlow family became Kwik Trip’s sole owner, differentiating it from most major filling-station brands, which operate as franchises. Donald Zietlow aspired to make Kwik Trip the Southwest Airlines of the convenience-store industry, by focusing on corporate culture and customer service.

For example, Kwik Trip job applicants are asked to share the most recent “random act of kindness” they bestowed. An annual profit-sharing program, rare in the retail world, adds roughly 10% to each employee’s yearly earnings, the company says.

In an industry notorious for filthy, locked restrooms and blasé cashiers, Zietlow set up a hotline for reporting cleanliness issues and would personally call back every customer who left a message. He trained Kwik Trip staff to send shoppers off with the relationship-building (albeit corporate-mandated) catchphrase: “See ‘ya next time.” The company allowed patrons to pump gas before paying until 2022.

Zietlow also evolved Kwik Trip’s business model away from the industry’s old “Cokes and smokes” approach to resemble food-forward gas chains such as Pennsylvania-based Wawa and Texas-based Buc-ee’s. Initially, this “failed miserably,” said company spokesperson Ben Leibl. In 2003, the company debuted heated racks stocked with burgers, breakfast sandwiches and cheese-filled breadsticks … which few people bought. “We were throwing more food away than we sold,” Leibl admitted.

The problem, Leibl explained, was that Kwik Trip’s so-called “hot spot” was ahead of its time. Customers were not used to buying perishable food at a gas station. “We had to change the perception so people could trust that buying food from a convenience store was gonna be okay,” he said. Now the hot racks are among the busiest spots in each store.

Under Zietlow’s direction, Kwik Trip vertically integrated its food business to produce, package and distribute 80% of its products in-house. Kwik Trip not only owns the dairy that processes its Nature’s Touch milk, but the blow-molding facility that makes the plastic jugs. These private-label products, such as Kwikery baked goods and Urge jerky and chips, tend to be more profitable and lower priced than national brands.

When Zietlow retired in 2022, in his late 80s, he handed the reins to his son, Dr. Scott Zietlow, who retired from his career as a Mayo Clinic trauma surgeon. Scott has kept the company on essentially the same course as his father. (Though he’s much less involved in politics than Donald, who has given more than $1 million in donations to Republicans and hosted a fundraiser for President Donald Trump.) The chain continues to maintain a schizophrenic stance on booze and sex: It’s a major Wisconsin alcohol retailer, yet doesn’t sell condoms.

In the next few years, the company plans to add stores along Minnesota’s I-94, west of St. Cloud, and in north-central Lakes Country. Currently, Minnesota’s Kwik Trip stores are concentrated in the southeastern part of the state and the Twin Cities suburbs. None is located in the heart of the metro, mostly due to the difficulty of buying a reasonably priced 2-acre land parcel, Leibl said. (Kwik Trip recently nixed a proposed Edina location after negative feedback from city staff.)

Meeting modern tastes

Just before the pandemic hit, Kwik Trip introduced two instantly popular food options: hot fried chicken and refrigerated take-home meals. Those additions helped Kwik Trip solidify its niche as a regular stop between major grocery shopping trips, particularly in rural “food deserts.”

Around the same time, it started marketing online to convenience-minded Millennials and Gen Zers more known for Door Dashing a single coffee than soaking a pot of beans. The company’s social-media “voice” speaks a blend of Midwest vernacular and of-the-moment memes.

Social posts describe the company’s KFC-rivaling chicken as having “main character energy” and “rizz.” Videos show Milwaukee-based comedian Charlie Berens playing Kwik Trip employees and customers. Or the Minnesota influencer That Midwestern Mom whipping up a “doughnut salad” with crumbled Kwik Trip Dunkers, raspberry Jell-O and Cool Whip.

The grassroots presence of the Wisconsin Kwik Trip Enthusiast Club, or WKTEC, has also become a powerful brand promoter. (Testa created the Facebook page as a joke in 2019 and after a member suggested he and his fiancée should get married at Kwik Trip, the page went viral.)

On the WKTEC page, commenters post photos of swoon-worthy sightings, such as a Kwik Trip at the end of a rainbow, the company’s banana-themed semi trucks, or a Porsche with a “KWIKTRP” personalized plate. Several copycat fan pages have emerged, including a Minnesota Enthusiasts group with 2,300 members, one of whom posted an AI-generated rendering of a Kwik Trip island accessed by boats instead of cars. Each January, when the company alerts rewards-club members of their “Tripper” status — app users are ranked according to how frequently they visit — commenters post screenshots of their stats.

Joseph Cooper, of Winona, made 443 visits to Kwik Trip last year, making him a top 1% “Tripper.” After his daily 2-mile walk, he stops at the convenience store to pick up breakfast. Cooper also gets groceries and gas at Kwik Trip and says he appreciates the reasonable prices and helpful employees. “They started as a local convenience store and still operate under that same model,” he noted. “That’s why they are top notch.”

Fellow 1%-er Tiffanie Loesch Eilers is also a Kwik Trip employee who has doled out samples and frosted doughnuts. The busy sports mom describes her North Branch store as the local “go-to snack shack, easy dinner grab-n-go, and grocery store” for the community, as well as a social hub. “The convenience is impossible to deny,” she said. “And the familiar faces are a rejuvenating emotional bonus.”

Seven years after Testa started the Wisconsin Kwik Trip Enthusiast Club, it’s has become big enough to have its own merch line, with WKTEC emblazoned on coffee mugs and joggers.

Testa attributes the group’s popularity to Kwik Trip’s embodiment of Midwest values. Wisconsinites, he says, are devoted to utility-minded local brands, including Menards, Kohl’s and, of course, Kwik Trip. The same might be said for Minnesotans.

“The Midwest, except for Chicago, doesn’t do big and flashy,” Testa said. “We want quality and a fair price.”

And a 50-ounce Mountain Dew for the road.

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