Convenience store chain shutters alcohol-only stores

In my years running a large toy store in Manchester, Conn., the biggest challenge was having the right inventory for the holiday season. While some items, like train sets and certain board games, sell every year, many of our categories were trend-driven.

If I ordered space-themed Legos and kids wanted the Ninja-themed sets, their parents simply shopped elsewhere. If you don’t sell what people want to buy, then location, price, and other factors don’t really matter.

That’s not unique to toy stores. All retailers and restaurant chains have to pivot their inventories or even their concepts to offer consumers what they want now, not what used to be popular.

Doughnut chains, for example, fall out of favor whenever cutting carbs becomes trendy. Currently, consumers on GLP-1 drugs have pushed chains like Chipotle Mexican Grill, McDonald’s, and Subway to offer more protein-heavy meals.

Another trend, Americans drinking less, has led Kwik Trip to close a number of its Kwik Spirits stores.

Kwik Trip closing Kwik Spirits locations

Kwik Trip, which operates around 800 convenience stores, opened Kwik Spirits in 2022. These stores were not connected to gas stations and generally did not offer a full convenience-store selection, although select locations did due to local regulations.

Kwik Spirits locations feature products including wine, liquor, beer, and tobacco, including humidor cigars, roll-your-own, chewing tobacco, vape products, and cigarettes, according to Kwik Trip’s website.

The convenience store chain embraced liquor, cigars, and upscale tobacco products to offset a decline in traditional cigarettes in its stores.

“We were looking at the tobacco industry and seeing that the tobacco industry is a declining category, so what do we do to replace some of that income that we’re losing on the tobacco side?” Kwik Trip executive Mike Vold said, according to NACS Magazine.

At the time, the saw beer and liquor as a larger growth category.

“We thought: Who doesn’t like beer or liquor? It has a much wider appeal to a wider range of guests, so we decided to experiment and try the Kwik Spirits brand in a number of stores,” he added.

Just three years later, the company is closing 13 Kwik Spirits locations as alcohol and tobacco sales decline.

Kwik Trip blames it on the alcohol

Kwik Trip Public Relations Specialist Ben Leibl said the decision comes as alcohol and tobacco sales continue to decline nationwide, reported WXOW News 19.

He added that the move reflects a broader shift away from standalone alcohol and tobacco stores.

“I would say moving forward, we are looking to move past the standalone Kwik Spirits and Tobacco Outlet Plus stores, especially these 13 locations,” Leibl said. “Again, due to the nature of the declining sales for both alcohol and tobacco.”

Americans, by their own admission, are drinking less, and their views on alcohol have changed.

“The percentage of U.S. adults who say they consume alcohol has fallen to 54%, the lowest by one percentage point in Gallup’s nearly 90-year trend. This coincides with a growing belief among Americans that moderate alcohol consumption is bad for one’s health, now the majority view for the first time,” Gallup reported.

Gallup has tracked Americans’ drinking behavior since 1939 and their views of the health implications of moderate drinking since 2001. The latest results are from Gallup’s annual Consumption Habits survey, conducted July 7-21.

“From 1997 to 2023, at least 60% of Americans reported drinking alcohol. The figure fell to 62% in 2023 and to 58% in 2024, before reaching 54% today,” the survey showed.

Alcohol sales are expected to continue declining worldwide

“Global alcohol consumption is set to drop over the next ‌decade, despite population growth and rising demand in India, which is set to become the world’s biggest drinks market after China,” according to market research firm IWSR, as reported by Reuters.

The drop, however, will only be 1% between 2025 and 2035, the data showed.

In the United States, however, the numbers have been more extreme.

During its annual economic briefing in February, the Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S. (Discus) reported slumping sales.

“Chris Swonger, Discus president and CEO, shared that spirits supplier sales in the US totalled $36.4 billion in 2025, down by 2.2% from the year before,” according to Spirits Business.

RTMNexus CEO sees the trend differently, and blamed slowing alcohol sales on the economy rather than health concerns.

“The value of chains like Kwik Trip, I think is because consumers are trying to buy it [in the] easiest way possible, which might be online, might be ordering it, might be a Costco, and they’re not necessarily budgeting for convenience,” he told TheStreet.

Convenience, he noted, is less important than price, as many Americans have struggled.

“But number two, they’re all cutting back on luxury in a slower economy. So spending extra money on alcohol, which might have just been something you pick up as instinct, [is] slightly changing,” he added.

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