Is Citgo becoming less popular?

[ynkeesfn82]

Is Citgo becoming a less popular gasoline brand?

I know of four in Connecticut that that have closed in the past 3 years.

After 5 years as a Citgo Station the location at 662 Queen Street in Southington next to Shoprite Plaza went back to Exxon when they reopened after being closed for a week after the October 2011 blizzard.


The one on New Britain Avenue in Plainville across the street from Sunoco closed down (again) over the summer. They were supposed to remodel, but never did. Trucks from City Oil based out of New Britain are parked on the property.


A Citgo on East Street in Plainville (near a Getty [also closed] and Sunoco) that also fixed cars stopped selling gas and removed their pumps. They're just repairing cars now.


The Citgo on Wolcott Road in Wolcott near Harold's Country Store remains fire damaged and closed. Just weeks before they were ready to reopen after a previous fire, they had another fire in 2013. A sale several years before the first fire to Kensington based Food Bag Inc. never went through reportedly because they couldn't come to an agreement on price. Luckily in both cases the fires did not reach the gas pumps. If that had happened a large part of Wolcott Road would've been wiped off the map. The first fire was electrical and just destroyed the store part of the gas station and did not reach the garage that was leasing space from them. The 2nd fire occurred when a car that was being worked on apparently spontaniously combusted destroying the garage and the mini-mart section that was almost finished being repaired from the first fire.

[retailisking]

In 2011 Citgo got a boost when CN Brown (Maine's largest gasoline wholesaler) picked up the Citgo brand for its Big Apple convenience stores after ExxonMobil withdrew from the state.  Citgo had been on the decline since 7-Eleven's 2006 decision to drop them and go unbranded.

[zonemad96]

We have High's stores all over here in Maryland and most of them carry Citgo gas except a few that have shell. To be honest though High's sucks, their food is worse than most name brand convenience stores and most of their stores are outdated and old. Their's also a few Citgo stations here that sell only gas but every one of them are so old and run down it's a wonder how the pumps are up to code.

As a Marylander who has been to PA I would like to know why PA has the better convenience stores? With the exception of toms and super 7 mart PA always seems to have better convenience stores, it's not fair we need a Turkey Hill or Rutter's down here.

[retailisking]

We have High's stores all over here in Maryland and most of them carry Citgo gas except a few that have shell. To be honest though High's sucks, their food is worse than most name brand convenience stores and most of their stores are outdated and old. Their's also a few Citgo stations here that sell only gas but every one of them are so old and run down it's a wonder how the pumps are up to code.

As a Marylander who has been to PA I would like to know why PA has the better convenience stores? With the exception of toms and super 7 mart PA always seems to have better convenience stores, it's not fair we need a Turkey Hill or Rutter's down here.

Don't Sheetz and Wawa both operate in Maryland? Are they not worthy of their reputation? I wonder if Kroger will open Turkey Hill convenience stores in MD now that they're about to close on their purchase of Harris Teeter.

[zonemad96]

We have High's stores all over here in Maryland and most of them carry Citgo gas except a few that have shell. To be honest though High's sucks, their food is worse than most name brand convenience stores and most of their stores are outdated and old. Their's also a few Citgo stations here that sell only gas but every one of them are so old and run down it's a wonder how the pumps are up to code.

As a Marylander who has been to PA I would like to know why PA has the better convenience stores? With the exception of toms and super 7 mart PA always seems to have better convenience stores, it's not fair we need a Turkey Hill or Rutter's down here.

Don't Sheetz and Wawa both operate in Maryland? Are they not worthy of their reputation? I wonder if Kroger will open Turkey Hill convenience stores in MD now that they're about to close on their purchase of Harris Teeter.

We do have Sheetz and 7-Eleven has quite a lot of stores in the area as well, we do have a few wawa's but their mostly in the more urban area's. The rural areas of Maryland are slowly starting to get more and more populated and as a result businesses are starting to move in. There will never be a more perfect time for businesses who aren't well known in Maryland to move into those rural parts. In a marketplace where everything is new you don't have to worry about brand loyalty however you wait 10 years after everyone else has already expanded into that territory then it becomes a problem.

Just naming a few of the store's to come in the recent year's
Eldersburg: Kohl's, Home Depot, Martins, kfc, Royal Farm's, and will soon be getting a new walmart
Taneytown: Dollar general, kennie's market, Peeble's, Dunkin' Donuts,  and soon will be getting a new sheetz
Westminster: Dick's sporting goods, Aldi's, Petco, TSC, and Chick-fil-A
Fredrick: Wegmans, lowe's, marshall's

Rutter's and Turkey Hill should at least open a few stores in the area and see how it goes even if their not as profitable as their pa stores they would at least gain brand exposure for if they decided to expand into the area in the future.

[TheFugitive]

I don't buy gas there because they are owned by the Government of Venezuela.
And so long as Hugo Chavez and his successor, Nicolas Maduro, are jerking their
people around, I choose not to support that.

[bubcolbert1952]

I don't buy gas there because they are owned by the Government of Venezuela.
And so long as Hugo Chavez and his successor, Nicolas Maduro, are jerking their
people around, I choose not to support that.

It was just in the news that the dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong Un (son of the late Kim Jong Il), ordered the execution of several of his distant family members for attempting to overthrow the communist government. And these executions apparently happened even though word leaked to the world a few days before that plans for their butchering had been made.

Bringing this back to Venezuela, my personal opinion is that Venezuela and all other Spanish-speaking countries except Spain, Puerto Rico, and Equatorial Guinea are puppets of Cuba, which is right now celebrating 55 years of terrorizing the USA starting with the last year of Eisenhower's presidency. Considering Cuba is a communist country (and a communist country that still opposes everything the USA supports, unlike China) along with North Korea, I say the USA should invade Cuba and do to Raul Castro what was done to Saddam Hussein. Just maybe the USA could rebuild its relationship with Iran if the Iranians were willing to give the USA nuclear weapons to use against Cuba, perhaps to be launched from either Florida or Puerto Rico, or maybe British territories (which are therefore friendly to the USA) such as Belize in Central America or Jamaica. Remember Iran and North Korea have been enemies since at least the time of the Korean War in the early 50's. And bringing this thread back to oil companies, allegedly Shell hired former Nazi agents living under false identities in Brazil to try and assassinate Fidel Castro, who banned most non-Cuban companies from Cuba except Russian and Chinese companies, and even forced out Bacardi (a Cuban company that started during the US Civil War when Cuba was still a Spanish colony) for planning a sale of the company to an American bank.

[ynkeesfn82]

Can we keep politics off the boards?

Thanks,

Marc B
Moderator

[TheFugitive]

Sorry, just trying to explain why Citgo's sales may be down.   :-[

[Retail Fan+ (Justin Hill)]

In the last six years, I've been seeing a smaller number of Citgo stations in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Some became BP, while others became Shell. One Green Bay Citgo location became a Cenex.

[jason83080]

I haven't seen a Citgo station around here in ages. Most of them are now Valero stations, or some weird off-brand "we threw darts at word cards from Pictionary and named our station that" places.

There might be *one* Citgo station left - there's a station in North Ridgeville that's on a corner and is connected to a 7-Eleven that I remember seeing a long time ago - but I'm not sure.

[Hudsons81]

As far as I can remember, Citgo has pretty much stayed afloat here in southeast Michigan-in fact, during the last few years, we even got a few new Citgo stations, although several existing Citgo stations here did switch to other brands.

[AmesNewington]

Near me, Citgo is pretty popular, especially during the winter when gas prices went down, and they had some of the lowest prices around. There are three in Newington (one on Cedar Street/Route 175, one in the center of town off Main Street, and one on the Berlin Turnpike down the road from McDonald's). There is also a large one on the Pike in Berlin near the Home Depot plaza. The two turnpike locations made the news when the long lines of customers waiting for cheap gas under $2 a gallon was happening just months ago. We always use Citgo.