Move Over Wawa, A Midwest Rival Just Took The 2025 Crown For Customer Satisfaction

For years, Wawa has been the top choice of East Coast convenience stores. Founded in Pennsylvania, it's not what you'd typically find on the side of the road but rather a hybrid of a coffee shop, deli, and gas station. Wawa goes above and beyond the typical dingy convenience store, and it's no surprise that, in 2024, it topped the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) for convenience stores with a score of 82. But in 2025, this shifted, with a rival taking the number one spot in the ACSI: Kwik Trip.

The La Crosse, Wisconsin-based Kwik Trip overtook Wawa with its score of 84 points. Kwik Trip saw an impressive jump in customer satisfaction from last year, with an 8% increase from its 2024 score of 78. Wawa remained at the same score as last year with a highly respectable 82 points, and we've named it the best gas station to stop at for coffee.

While Wawa is an East Coast chain, Kwik Trip is more prominent in the Midwest, with almost 900 locations across Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois. Kwik Trip's customer loyalty can be attributed to things like good coffee and clean bathrooms, but it goes deeper than that. The company has committed to truly owning its quality — it operates its own bakery, dairy, kitchens, and distribution centers and controls food safety with its own lab. In fact, a majority of the products found in Kwik Trip are its own brand products.

In any Kwik Trip store, you'll find 10 varieties of fresh bread and baked goods like muffins, cookies, and cinnamon rolls. The milk sold here is sourced within 100 miles of La Crosse, WI, and the company jokes on its website that the milk goes from "cow to store in 24 hours." Of course, there are all the top typical convenience store purchases here, too, like candy, snacks, ice cream, and other necessities.

Hot prepared meals are also a big perk here. You won't find just gas station hot dogs and taquitos here, but more complete on-the-go meals like sandwiches, salads, and breakfast burritos. If you want to take a meal home to heat up, there are options like take-and-bake pizza, an enchilada bowl, pasta dishes, and meatloaf with potatoes — and some of these are as affordable as under $5.

This year on the ACSI, survey respondents also highlighted features in a convenience store that mattered to them, besides things like friendly staff, food, beverages, and cleanliness, the quality of the mobile app and the convenience of store hours and locations mattered significantly. Kwik Trip checks off these boxes — its locations are open late, and some stay open 24 hours. And its app, Kwik Rewards, provides exclusive in-app deals and rewards points; it seems to work well, with a 4.8 rating out of 298,000 reviews in the Apple App Store.