'Why the Sheetz not?' hasn't been enough to sell Michigan cities on big gas stations

A little more than a year after Sheetz announced it is expanding to Michigan, the Pennsylvania-based convenience store and gas station chain’s president and CEO Travis Sheetz visited its first metro Detroit location in Romulus.

It's not slated to open until September, but Sheetz, who wants to build 50-60 more in metro Detroit, made the case Thursday to the Free Press and other media outlets why communities should embrace it, and why Michigan is vital to the company's future.

"It's a big bet," Sheetz said while visiting the Free Press offices. "We're committing to a bunch of stores. Our plan is not to build three stores, watch and wait. Strategically, we think we need to have a presence quickly."

In many ways, Sheetz and Michigan should be a natural fit.

Michiganders, like Pennsylvanians, are authentic, hardworking — and love their cars.

Sheetz, an $11-billion company, employs 25,395 at 722 stores in a half-dozen states.

The stores bring jobs — about 30 per location with pay starting at just under $15 an hour, with benefits, including medical and dental insurance, a retirement plan, and stock ownership — and they enhance a community's tax base.

But that, along with the company’s clever marketing line, "Why the Sheetz not?" hasn't been enough, at least not in four suburban Detroit communities, where residents have objected to the 24/7 traffic, noise, and pollution.

In Madison Heights, Rochester Hills, and Waterford, where Sheetz faced opposition, the company pulled back its applications, claiming it wasn’t ready; and in Fraser, the planning commission outright rejected its plans.

"We fully expect it in a new market," Sheetz said of the community pushback. "We are accustomed to being shot down at first," adding that in in Columbus, Ohio, market, there also was opposition, but "we now have 34 stores."

Sheetz is also looking at Chesterfield in Macomb County, Livonia in Wayne County, and others in Oakland County, and eventually, further out, making Michigan a key part of its future.

Family-owned and run

Michigan is a big opportunity for Travis Sheetz because it offers the company its next test in its steady growth plan, which means opening, on average, a new store a month. It also poses a big challenge.

In late 2022, when Travis Sheetz announced his expansion plans, he made the point it was the company’s first expansion into a new state in two decades, adding it is "dedicated to being a great employer and neighbor."

And the private company's ambitious plans — an estimated half-billion investment — come at a time when other companies, and consumers, are cutting back on costs and expenses, and automakers aim to move from gas-powered cars to electric ones.

There also are shifting generational attitudes and some Michigan idiosyncrasies.

Among some of the nuances that the Sheetz folks had to learn about was the Michigan left, which Sheetz called "interesting and unique." When he first heard about the Michigan left he said he wondered: "Wait, you can't just turn at the intersection?"

But, he said, he realized that while it was new to him, Michiganders are used to it.

Sheetz now operates in six states — Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina — with about 700 stores and a handful of members of the Sheetz family in the company’s top management.

Initially, Travis Sheetz's cousin, Emily Sheetz, the Altoona-based company’s executive vice president of strategy, had planned to accompany Travis to Detroit, which would have offered the Free Press a chance to make a bad headline pun about giving "two Sheetz."

But she couldn’t make it — this time.

Still, Travis Sheetz may be the company’s best choice to try to sell reluctant communities on Sheetz. He has a bachelor’s degree in finance from Penn State, and a master’s degree from Vanderbilt University.

And addition to being the CEO, he began in the family business in real estate site election, and he also worked in the sales department. He was chief operating officer until he became CEO, following his brother, Joe, into the chief executive role.

Their uncle, Bob Sheetz started the company, which initially was a single dairy store that he bought from his father, in 1952, and in addition to other family members, one of Travis Sheetz's four children, who recently graduated, also started working in the company.

Her job: Preparing the managers and workers who want to move to Detroit.

Why did you pick us?

Bob Sheetz, who changed the name of the store to Sheetz Kwik Shopper, opened a second one in 1963, and then a third, and by 1972, had 14 stores, and then added gasoline pumps – and by the 1980s had more than a hundred stores.

On its website — under the heading "What's a Sheetz?" — the company calls itself "a mecca for people on the go," adding that "if you need to refuel your car or refresh your body, we have what you need" all the time, "even on Christmas."

Before the company announced it was expanding to Michigan, rumors had begun circulating on the internet. In addition to being a state that is friendly to automobiles, Michigan already has some Sheetz fans, which the company calls “Sheetz Freakz.”

And for a while, the company even carried Detroit’s pop brand, Faygo, which Sheetz said "took off like crazy."

Molly Gagnon's view, a marketing expert who teaches it at Oakland University, said that Sheetz projects a sense of high-quality and fun, and has "had success in other states," but "they have to bring the emotion and stories to Michigan while highlighting value."

A the same time, she added, many Michiganders have never heard about Sheetz.

"If they're coming to a new market, they need to answer: Why did you pick this location?" Gagnon said, adding the company needs to communicate it understands the customer. To put it another way: "What problem, for the city, is Sheetz trying to solve?"

Experiencing is believing

Gagnon suggested Sheetz needs to make a stronger case of not, what's in a move into Michigan for Sheetz — or even what's in it for Michigan — but what's in it for the residents that live in the community where it wants to build.

And then, Gagnon said, it may become clearer whether the early opposition has drowned out the excitement some Michiganders initially expressed about Sheetz and the marketing points that the company — and Travis Sheetz ― is trying to extoll.

Among them:

• Sheetz offers convenience and service.

• It sells an array of both "indulgent," Sheetz's word, and healthy food, including fresh food: fruit, salads, and healthy sandwiches. And, Sheetz said, the healthy menu has been growing because he knows people increasingly care about what they eat.

• The company has a charitable program it said it will use to try to address hunger, and it has joined with a nonprofit that focused on donating unsold food so it helps fill bellies, not landfills.

• Sheetz aims to have electric charging stations, which, also won’t solve the problem of car emissions or range anxiety but will help, especially during cold snaps when it takes batteries longer to recharge.

And if past experience is a guide, Travis Sheetz said, the Romulus store opening will be a key to winning over the state because when that happens, Detroiters can experience for themselves, and see with their own eyes, what he's talking about.

Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Sheetz CEO betting the family company on expansion into metro Detroit