Popular Convenience Store Has No Locations Left in Minnesota

It was just named *the* most popular chain in the country, but this line of convenience stores has exactly zero locations left here in Minnesota.

Whether it’s our cold weather, or perhaps an ancient curse involving a misplaced coupon, but whatever the reason, Minnesota remains in exile for this well-known convenience store chain that was, strangely, just named the most popular grocery store in the country.

Now, there are a LOT of grocery stores spread across the Land of 10,000 Lakes these days. The Minnesota Grocers Association (MGA) defines a 'grocery store' as a store that sell 'a line of dry grocery, canned goods, some perishable items as well as some non-food items.' It also says there are currently over 38,000 of these stores in the U.S.

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Closer to home, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture notes that there are over '8,000 licensed retail food establishments' currently in operation across the North Star State. But none of those over 8,000 stores are the most popular grocery store in the country.

That's the word from this new Food & Wine story, anyway. It just quoted a survey done by YouGov, a market research and analytics firm that ranked the favorite grocery stores in the nation.

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To come to its conclusion, Food & Wine said YouGov researchers interviewed 1,220 people in the U.S. over the months of October, November, and December of 2024. And after breaking down all the responses, it named... 7-Eleven as America's favorite grocery store for all adults.

Now, while using the MGA definition, it would appear that 7-Eleven convenience stores *could* be considered grocery stores, but I'm guessing not many Minnesotans would agree with that assessment, right?

When you say 'grocery store' here in Minnesota, you think of names Cub, HyVee, Lunds & Byerlys, Trader Joe's, Aldi, and Fareway, right? But 7-Eleven would seem to be more a convenience store than a grocery store, much like Wisconsin-based Kwik Trip or Iowa-based Casey's, which we also consider convenience stores.

According to data from ScrapeHero, 7-Eleven, currently operates 9,223 stores across 38 U.S. states and territories. The U.S. state that claims the most number of 7-Eleven locations is California, with a total of 1,889 stores-- about 20 percent of all 7-Eleven stores in the country.

But whether you consider it a convenience store or a grocery store, here's the thing: There aren't currently any 7-Eleven locations at all here in Minnesota. It's true. When you hit up the location finder on the 7-Eleven website and search for locations in the Bold North, here are the results:

It's not just Minnesota that is now a 7-Eleven desert, however. ScrapeHero notes that 7-Eleven also currently has no locations in the following 11 states:

• Alabama
• Alaska
• Arkansas
• Hawaii
• Iowa
• Mississippi
• Montana
• Nebraska
• North Dakota
• South Dakota
• Wyoming

That wasn't always the case, however, as there used to be several 7-Eleven locations in Minnesota, especially in the Twin Cities, as this 2020 TCB story noted. That same story said that the Speedway Gas and Convenience Store chain had then just been purchased by 7-Eleven and that it was likely the familiar 7-Eleven brand would reappear across the Gopher State.

But that appears to have *not* been the case, because while there currently aren't any 7-Eleven locations in Minnesota, the location-finder on the Speedway website says there are still 10 of its stores here in our fair state.

So while there aren't any 7-Elevens, there *are* other well-known grocery chains with locations across all of Minnesota, some of which have been called the Most Popular in the entire country. Keep scrolling to see which stores made the list!

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