The list is not ranked, and the methodology for inclusion leaves a bit to be desired:
[W]e perused online forums, review sites, and social media platforms .... The more positive comments we found about a specific chain, the more likely we were to include the gas station on this list.
Which seems to leave out any balance/ratio of positive to negative comments. So if Chain X's hot dog offering received 10,000 positive comments, it might make the list, even if it also received 250,000 negative comments.
So, QuikTrip and Circle K both made the list. In my opinion, the former belongs there (and, in my experience, in the very top spot), while the latter does not. Here's why:
When I'm able to visit a QuikTrip (they don't have any locations in my area, but I grew to know and love them when I lived up north in St. Louis), the experience is invariably excellent. Not just with hot dogs, but I'll stick to the hot dogs as the example. The roller grill is always full. The hot dogs on the roller grill are always fresh. They're never out of buns. They're never out of condiments. If there's any problem, it gets corrected immediately when called to the attention of an employee, but that doesn't happen very often because at QT they stay on top of things.
When I visit a Circle K -- the predominant c-store chain in my area -- maybe the roller grill has hot dogs (or anything else on it), maybe not. Maybe the hot dogs are reasonably fresh, maybe they've been sitting on the thing for six hours and look like elongated raisins. Maybe there are buns, maybe not. Maybe the buns are soft, maybe they're rock-hard. Maybe the condiment station has onions, jalapenos, sauerkraut, relish, etc., maybe it's empty and the choice is just between packets/bottles of ketchup and mustard (and they may be out of packets and have empty bottles, too).
The roller grill products are pretty much the same, although for some reason Circle K seldom has my favorite, "buffalo chicken sticks," while QT always does. And we're talking about hot dogs here. It's not the products itself in question, it's the ability/willingness to serve that product hot, fresh, with a bun that's also fresh, and with an assortment of decent condiments.
That, in my opinion, comes down to corporate culture.
QT has a "profit-sharing" plan and other employee-happiness stuff going on, and I've run into people who've worked there for a LONG time. In St. Louis, the manager of my nearest QT had a degree in physics ... but just continued with QT after working part-time there in college because he was making more money managing a convenience store than he could make as a physics professor, with less heartburn.
I've simply never had poor service at a QT. The stores are always adequately staffed and the staff is always helpful and friendly. I wondered if the "we can't find help" problems that often get attributed to COVID had hit QT, and had a chance to find out on a trip to St. Louis last year. We flew there but drove back, and during the trip we stopped at two QTs in St. Louis and picked one to gas up / snack up at virtually every chance we had on the way home, hitting our final one in Georgia just north of the Florida state line.
At every QT we visited (the two in St. Louis and, IIRC, four on the drive home), the experience was exactly as described above.
Circle K, on the other hand, seems to have a real problem keeping enough people at work in each store for things to run well. That goes back to before COVID, when my daughter worked at one. The people are friendly, but they're over-worked, which means that when there's a line stretching around the store you're lucky if both registers are operating because sometimes they have one employee trying to do everything. Ringing up sales of pre-packaged goods for waiting customers comes before tending to the roller grill, hooking up new canisters of syrup to the soda fountain, etc.
And believe me, you do not want to see the restrooms at most Circle Ks (at a QT, they're always spotless and I'm always surprised there's not one of those guys standing there to offer you a hot towel and ask if he should call to have your car pulled around front by a valet).
The hot dog listicle is interesting, but it's just about the hot dogs, not about the hot dog buying experience. And, well, for the most part, a hot dog is just a hot dog, so it's the buying experience that tells the real story.
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