6 ms·

I wonder how 7/11 in the US will change now that the Japanese version bought out the US version. Will we actually have hot and prepared food like Japan? I doubt

I wonder how 7/11 in the US will change now that the Japanese version bought out the US version. Will we actually have hot and prepared food like Japan? I doubt it, seems the supply chain infrastructure just isn't there.

mgiampapa 5mo ago
7/11 Japan has been running the stores in Hawaii for ages, just look there.
- kelnos 5mo ago
  The stores in Hawaii are certainly nicer and more full-featured than the ones on the US mainland, but the stores in Japan and Taiwan are still light-years ahead.
Larrikin 5mo ago
It's been fully owned by the Japanese company for over 20 years
m463 5mo ago
I was in 7/11 in the US and they sell egg sandwiches. coincidence?
- criddell 5mo ago
  Did you try one? Egg sandwiches really aren't my thing but I've always wondered if the US version comes close to the quality of the Japanese version even if some of the details (like presence of bread crust) differ.
  - wat10000 5mo ago
    An egg sandwich is not the sort of thing I'd trust from 7-11. I'd be thinking of that Futurama episode with the worms the whole time I was eating it.
m0llusk 5mo ago
The waste generated is also a major challenge. Having fresh food always ready means trashing a lot of meals. In the US there are networks of food banks and such, but it can still be difficult to keep up with the flow of unpurchased food that is no longer fresh.
- ssl-3 5mo ago
  How is this waste dealt with in Japan? Why can't whatever-that-is be implemented in the US?
  - thaumasiotes 5mo ago
    It can, but probably not in advance. It wouldn't make much sense to develop infrastructure around a source of rapidly-expiring food before that source existed. But once the food is there, demand for it will quickly develop. There's a general theme in policy discussions of people saying "system X has a feature that system Y does not have; therefore, moving from system Y to system X must require a fully-developed auxiliary system to be in place for dealing with that feature before the move can even be considered a possibility". This is complete nonsense; it's what people say when they want to object to something, but don't have any reasons.
    - ssl-3 5mo ago
      That's kind of what I was leaning towards. It's a problem that needs solved, but it's not necessarily hard to solve, nor does it need solved in advance. It's the kind of problem can often very nearly resolve itself. Here in the States, I've seen what can happen at the end of the night at a busy Little Ceasers in a not-great part of town. They've got a lot of unsold pizzas, already boxed, that they simply need to get rid of so they can close up and go home. So they walk out the back door with armloads of pizzas and... casually give them away to the people who are waiting out there. It's a very calm and surprisingly tidy process that goes by quickly. This happens at the same time every night. The only apparent cost is whatever it takes to maintain the base amount of humility required to let this happen instead of dutifully marching the pizzas over to the dumpster and tossing them in. This routine is almost certainly an invention of evolution, instead of planning.
AlexAplin 5mo ago
Besides the context in the other comments, they pushed the Japanese fresh food angle in a media blitz pretty hard last year (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/09/business/7-eleven-ceo-stephen-dacus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/09/business/7-eleven-ceo-ste...). Egg sandwiches seem to be the most reliably available in the contiguous states, but you can also spot egg rolls and onigiri. They're also now bracing to close hundreds of stores and reopen a fraction of that number to match the new model: https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2026/04/17/7-eleven-to-close-645-stores-as-it-races-to-catch-up-in-convenience/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2026/04/17/7-eleven...
ssl-3 5mo ago
As others have mentioned, 7/11 in the US has been owned by 7/11 (Japan) for quite a long time, now. There's some important organizational differences: Stores in Japan are almost entirely franchisee-operated, while stores in the US are more-or-less split 50% on being franchises or corpo. It's hard to draw conclusions when they're shaped so differently. But I can say this: Speedway is a large US chain of gas station/convenience stores, with ~2,800 locations (all of them corpo). They varied a lot; some had hot made-to-order food, some others were limited to roller dogs and baked, frozen pizza that was in many ways indistinguishable from cardboard. There has never been a time when Speedway was awesome, but there have been times when it was acceptable. It was usually better in the suburbs, and worse in the cities (I've seen some weird shit happen at Speedway stores in cities, but they generally kept up with the chaos). Overall, I'd give 5/10 -- it was often convenient and generally open 24/7, but at all times any of them could have used a lot of very obvious improvement. 5 years ago, 7/11 bought Speedway. They've subsequently managed to allow it to become even worse. Things are dirty, disorganized, clearly lacking any direction other than that which leads towards dilapidation, and the staff just doesn't appear to care about any of it. Under 7/11's ownership, my buying habits have shifted from "Hey, there's a Speedway. Let's stop in and get a soda or some coffee, or maybe a sandwich" to "Oh look, it's a Speedway. Let's keep moving." Their accomplishments here are very impressive.
- stephenhuey 5mo ago
  As someone who remembered 7/11 commercials as a kid in Texas in in the 80s, I thought they had completely died out in the USA until I spent a summer at a university in Mexico and there was a local 7/11 which was surprisingly nice. But unless they up their game in the USA, I see all the typical gas stations we grew up with as fading due to changing standards. Buc-ee's started in a tiny Texan town where some relatives live and now stretches from Colorado to Virginia to Florida. In addition to the vast amenities, including delicious fresh barbecue and salads, they have clean bathrooms and treat employees well. There's no going back (I hope), and I'm surprised they're not in California yet, though I guess California has stuff like EddieWorld. I recognize that this leaves an opportunity for smaller gas stations to try to improve to offer good-enough service since Buc-ee's focuses on larger stores, but my hope is that the elevated standards will trickle down to forcing smaller ones to raise standards. Seems like 7/11 would be well-positioned to adopt that strategy to become that dominant smaller store, if they're paying attention.
UncleOxidant 5mo ago
Would be great if we could get oniguri in US 7/11s.
soared 5mo ago
7/11 has always had hot pizza, fried chicken, rollers, etc in my area?
bandrami 5mo ago
7/11 has had hot prepared food for decades in the US. Pizza, meat pies, rollers, and those hot dogs
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
rhplus 5mo ago
7/11 Japan really benefits from urban density, which in turn makes the distribution of fresher food and smaller footprint stores much more of a factor. The distribution network even shows up in maps. There will be clusters of 7/11 in Japanese cities which is more efficient than spreading them equally. https://conbini.kikkia.dev/ https://conbini.kikkia.dev/
AtlasBarfed 5mo ago
It's not like the corner store isn't a thing in places like New York and Chicago. Is that sector ripe for consolidation?

mgiampapa 5mo ago

7/11 Japan has been running the stores in Hawaii for ages, just look there.

kelnos 5mo ago
The stores in Hawaii are certainly nicer and more full-featured than the ones on the US mainland, but the stores in Japan and Taiwan are still light-years ahead.

Larrikin 5mo ago

It's been fully owned by the Japanese company for over 20 years

m463 5mo ago

I was in 7/11 in the US and they sell egg sandwiches. coincidence?

criddell 5mo ago
Did you try one? Egg sandwiches really aren't my thing but I've always wondered if the US version comes close to the quality of the Japanese version even if some of the details (like presence of bread crust) differ.
- wat10000 5mo ago
  An egg sandwich is not the sort of thing I'd trust from 7-11. I'd be thinking of that Futurama episode with the worms the whole time I was eating it.

m0llusk 5mo ago

The waste generated is also a major challenge. Having fresh food always ready means trashing a lot of meals. In the US there are networks of food banks and such, but it can still be difficult to keep up with the flow of unpurchased food that is no longer fresh.

ssl-3 5mo ago
How is this waste dealt with in Japan? Why can't whatever-that-is be implemented in the US?
- thaumasiotes 5mo ago
  It can, but probably not in advance. It wouldn't make much sense to develop infrastructure around a source of rapidly-expiring food before that source existed. But once the food is there, demand for it will quickly develop. There's a general theme in policy discussions of people saying "system X has a feature that system Y does not have; therefore, moving from system Y to system X must require a fully-developed auxiliary system to be in place for dealing with that feature before the move can even be considered a possibility". This is complete nonsense; it's what people say when they want to object to something, but don't have any reasons.
  - ssl-3 5mo ago
    That's kind of what I was leaning towards. It's a problem that needs solved, but it's not necessarily hard to solve, nor does it need solved in advance. It's the kind of problem can often very nearly resolve itself. Here in the States, I've seen what can happen at the end of the night at a busy Little Ceasers in a not-great part of town. They've got a lot of unsold pizzas, already boxed, that they simply need to get rid of so they can close up and go home. So they walk out the back door with armloads of pizzas and... casually give them away to the people who are waiting out there. It's a very calm and surprisingly tidy process that goes by quickly. This happens at the same time every night. The only apparent cost is whatever it takes to maintain the base amount of humility required to let this happen instead of dutifully marching the pizzas over to the dumpster and tossing them in. This routine is almost certainly an invention of evolution, instead of planning.

AlexAplin 5mo ago

Besides the context in the other comments, they pushed the Japanese fresh food angle in a media blitz pretty hard last year (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/09/business/7-eleven-ceo-stephen-dacus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/09/business/7-eleven-ceo-ste...). Egg sandwiches seem to be the most reliably available in the contiguous states, but you can also spot egg rolls and onigiri. They're also now bracing to close hundreds of stores and reopen a fraction of that number to match the new model: https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2026/04/17/7-eleven-to-close-645-stores-as-it-races-to-catch-up-in-convenience/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2026/04/17/7-eleven...

ssl-3 5mo ago

As others have mentioned, 7/11 in the US has been owned by 7/11 (Japan) for quite a long time, now. There's some important organizational differences: Stores in Japan are almost entirely franchisee-operated, while stores in the US are more-or-less split 50% on being franchises or corpo. It's hard to draw conclusions when they're shaped so differently. But I can say this: Speedway is a large US chain of gas station/convenience stores, with ~2,800 locations (all of them corpo). They varied a lot; some had hot made-to-order food, some others were limited to roller dogs and baked, frozen pizza that was in many ways indistinguishable from cardboard. There has never been a time when Speedway was awesome, but there have been times when it was acceptable. It was usually better in the suburbs, and worse in the cities (I've seen some weird shit happen at Speedway stores in cities, but they generally kept up with the chaos). Overall, I'd give 5/10 -- it was often convenient and generally open 24/7, but at all times any of them could have used a lot of very obvious improvement. 5 years ago, 7/11 bought Speedway. They've subsequently managed to allow it to become even worse. Things are dirty, disorganized, clearly lacking any direction other than that which leads towards dilapidation, and the staff just doesn't appear to care about any of it. Under 7/11's ownership, my buying habits have shifted from "Hey, there's a Speedway. Let's stop in and get a soda or some coffee, or maybe a sandwich" to "Oh look, it's a Speedway. Let's keep moving." Their accomplishments here are very impressive.

stephenhuey 5mo ago
As someone who remembered 7/11 commercials as a kid in Texas in in the 80s, I thought they had completely died out in the USA until I spent a summer at a university in Mexico and there was a local 7/11 which was surprisingly nice. But unless they up their game in the USA, I see all the typical gas stations we grew up with as fading due to changing standards. Buc-ee's started in a tiny Texan town where some relatives live and now stretches from Colorado to Virginia to Florida. In addition to the vast amenities, including delicious fresh barbecue and salads, they have clean bathrooms and treat employees well. There's no going back (I hope), and I'm surprised they're not in California yet, though I guess California has stuff like EddieWorld. I recognize that this leaves an opportunity for smaller gas stations to try to improve to offer good-enough service since Buc-ee's focuses on larger stores, but my hope is that the elevated standards will trickle down to forcing smaller ones to raise standards. Seems like 7/11 would be well-positioned to adopt that strategy to become that dominant smaller store, if they're paying attention.

UncleOxidant 5mo ago

Would be great if we could get oniguri in US 7/11s.

soared 5mo ago

7/11 has always had hot pizza, fried chicken, rollers, etc in my area?

bandrami 5mo ago

7/11 has had hot prepared food for decades in the US. Pizza, meat pies, rollers, and those hot dogs

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

rhplus 5mo ago

7/11 Japan really benefits from urban density, which in turn makes the distribution of fresher food and smaller footprint stores much more of a factor. The distribution network even shows up in maps. There will be clusters of 7/11 in Japanese cities which is more efficient than spreading them equally. https://conbini.kikkia.dev/ https://conbini.kikkia.dev/

AtlasBarfed 5mo ago

It's not like the corner store isn't a thing in places like New York and Chicago. Is that sector ripe for consolidation?