Wawa opened two new stores in Southwest Florida, celebrating with back-to-back ribbon-cutting ceremonies at each location Sept. 14. 

The new stores are at 14560 Chancellor Blvd. in Port Charlotte, near the Kia dealership and North Port border, and at 1055 Sun Market Place in North Port, near the Toledo Blade and Price boulevards intersection. 

Free coffee will be available to the community at both stores through Sept. 24, according to a news release from the company. 

“At Wawa, our core purpose is fulfilling lives every day, and since our first store opened, we’ve believed that we all have a role in making this world a better place,” CEO Chris Gheysens said. 

Roxanne Dowell is the general manager of the Port Charlotte location, and Christina Hock is general manager of the North Port Wawa. 

Wawa plans to open 76 new stores throughout the Mid-Atlantic region and Florida, including the Panhandle region, in 2023. The new Southwest Florida stores are the 44th and 45th stores to open this year. 

There are three Wawa stores in Charlotte County—two in Port Charlotte and one in Punta Gorda. 

As of Aug. 23, there were 1,032 Wawa stores in the U.S. The chain operates in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Florida and Washington, D.C. 

Wawa began in 1803 as an iron foundry. In 1890, entrepreneur George Wood moved from New Jersey to Delaware County, Pennsylvania, where he began the Wawa Dairy Farm, which was in a rural section called Wawa.  

Until the 1960s, the dairy delivered milk to customers’ homes, but consumers began buying their milk at stores. The business remained in the Wood family, and in April 1964, Grahame Wood, George Wood’s grandson, opened the first Wawa Food Market in Folsom, Pennsylvania. 

In 1977, Wawa began sharing ownership of the company with its associates through profit-sharing plans. In 2022, Wawa, which has remained a privately owned family company, had a revenue of $14.9 billion, according to Forbes.