July 16, 2026
JHVEPhoto/Depositphotos.com
What Lessons Can Casey’s Teach C-Store Competitors, and Will the Chain’s Success Story Hold?
In an extensive breakdown of Casey’s success story so far, C-Store Dive senior reporter Brett Dworski outlined the key growth pillars executed by the company. Beginning with remarks made by CEO Darren Rebelez as to the three-year growth plan Casey’s is embarking on — a plan involving the addition of 400 convenience stores via new constructions and modest acquisitions — while also pushing EBITDA up by 8%-10% CAGR.
One thing remained crystal-clear for Rebelez as he spoke to an audience of interested parties in late June: “What you will not see today is a radical departure from a strategy that’s been clearly working.”
The old adage of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” may hold weight here, with Casey’s reporting significant improvements in inside same-store sales since going public with the data five years ago. Each and every year since has seen growth in terms of this metric, from $3.8 billion in fiscal year 2021 to $6.3 billion in fiscal year 2026.
“Casey’s consistency has become increasingly unusual in convenience retail. Competitors including 7-Eleven, Alimentation Couche-Tard and Arko have reported softer merchandise demand and, in some cases, negative same-store merchandise sales growth,” Dworski wrote.
“So how is Casey’s accomplishing this impressive feat?” he then asked, before pivoting to answer his own question. The cornerstone of Casey’s success story, according to the chain’s own brass, is in treating its stores like restaurants — and in “operating an integrated business model that’s specific to Casey’s and executing that strategy with remarkable consistency,” per Dworski.
“We are not playing [the] c-store foodservice game — we are playing [the] restaurant game, and we’re doing it the way restaurants do,” Rebelez said. “I ran a restaurant company, I know how it gets done, and this is the way we’re doing it.”
Why does Casey's keep outperforming many of its convenience retail peers?
Our Dir. of Research Greg Halter shared his perspective with @CStoreDive on the competitive advantages driving the company's long-term growth.
Read more: https://t.co/hBvBRfWVmT
— Carnegie Investment Counsel (@CarnegieInvest) July 16, 2026
Other areas of strength for Casey’s pulled from the report:
- Pizza and wings are a big deal: Wings present a clear growth opportunity for Casey’s, present in 850 location and with internal plans to roll them out to all stores as 2028 draws to a close. Its pizza is a major player, too — it’s been snagging market share from competing quick-service chains and is especially winning in rural areas, where its presence is appreciate versus other options. “They make all their pizza dough from scratch … and just things like that have set them aside from others. If you’re driving through one of those [rural] towns, what are your options?” said Greg Halter, director of research at Carnegie Investment Counsel.
- Solid, stable leadership: Dworski noted that Casey’s has largely held its executive team intact over the past few years, with Rebelez emphasizing this fact in comments in the wake of investor day. “The least tenured leader on that stage yesterday has been in their job for six years. I think that continuity of leadership and everybody getting really good at their jobs, myself included, having some tenure now, really helps a lot from a leadership perspective,” the CEO said.
- Ownership and operational ease: Casey’s owns and operates its stores, versus competitors (Dworski cites 7-Eleven, Circle K, and Arko as examples) who do not enjoy this advantage, instead turning to franchisees or dealer-operated locations. Keeping things in-house provides agility and consistency across Casey’s footprint.
Lastly, Rebelez underscored the importance of the company’s “flywheel” — described by Dworski as “a self-reinforcing growth model built around prepared food and dispensed beverages, grocery and general merchandise, and fuel” — for a great deal of Casey’s strong report card.
BrainTrust
Tanya Thorson
Revenue & Customer Growth Leader, StrategiX Marketing
Mohamed Amer, PhD
Strategy Advisor, CEO & Co-Founder, BridgeCommAI
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Discussion Questions
Do you believe that Casey’s will continue to see the same degree of success in the near future as in the past? Why or why not?
What lessons do you believe competitors can take away from Casey’s growth story and resonance with its customer base? Which is the most important?
Are there any obvious issues you might point to with Casey’s as it stands today, in your opinion?
Poll
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Casey’s is firing on two cylinders: the essentials mission, served by its convenience and fuel offer; and the indulgence mission, driven by foodservice (especially pizza). The two often mutually reinforce each other, which helps to make Casey’s a destination over rivals and drives basket sizes and other metrics. This is all because Casey’s decided not to behave like a traditional convenience store in areas like foodservice and, instead, added value in the way that a good pizza joint or restaurant would. There’s a lesson there for all retailers: in everything you do, have the ambition to be best in class.
Casey’s success is real, but it’s not a ready-to-copy playbook; it’s an accumulated asset. Owned real estate, six years of stable leadership, and years of habituated trust in scratch-made food can’t be bought or rushed by competitors chasing the foodservice numbers overnight. That’s the genuine moat here. The harder question isn’t strategy; CEO Rebelez is right not to touch it. It’s operational: can 400 new stores in three years absorb the same leadership continuity and execution discipline that built the brand, or does rapid construction outpace the culture-building it depends on? Rivals can’t copy Casey’s. But Casey’s still has to prove it can copy itself at speed without losing what made the original stores work.
Casey’s is not winning because it sells pizza. It is winning because it built the business around why people come back.
The lesson for competitors is clarity. Casey’s understands the role it plays in the customer’s life, then aligns food, convenience, operations, and ownership around delivering that experience consistently.
Foodservice is not an add-on at Casey’s. It is a reason to visit, a reason to return, and a reason to spend more.
The next test is scale. Four hundred new stores will show whether Casey’s can grow the footprint while protecting the customer experience and operating discipline that made the model work.
With so many c-stores competing for the same fuel customer, giving people a reason to choose you beyond the pump is smart. Casey’s has built that in food, and it turns a routine fill-up into a two-for-one stop.
Rather than just thinking of expanding into different categories (in this case, restaurant items), Casey’s has discovered a new way to think about the convenience store business. As the original concept of the convenience store has changed, they recognize that the way they think of their business has to change. They realize they are not just in the gasoline-and-essentials business. This is what successful companies do. What got them there may not get them where they want to go in the future. There’s some risk in this kind of thinking, but understanding the customers’ changing expectations helps mitigate risk.
Casey’s will continue to see success because they are driven by a higher calling of differentiation, in saying they are not playing a c-store foodservice game, rather, playing the restaurant game. This creates a clear path into employee motivation, energy, and focus. From there, even the operating metrics will be different. Whether they actually get there doesn’t matter as much as the commitment to build that way, everyday. They can iterate, innovate, and improve from this statement alone.
The real lesson from Casey’s is not that convenience stores should sell more pizza. It is that once Casey’s decided it was competing in the restaurant business, it had to operate like one. Rebelez says as much in the piece. Casey’s is playing the restaurant game the way restaurants play it.
That changes how management thinks about labor scheduling, food preparation and waste. It raises the stakes for kitchen throughput, freshness and food safety. It should also change the measures used to run the business. A foodservice operation cannot be treated as just another merchandise category inside the store.
Competitors can copy the menu. They can install kitchens and add prepared food. The harder task is changing the operating model behind the offer. Store roles must be redesigned. Employees need different skills. Supply and replenishment must support fresh ingredients. Managers must understand restaurant economics as well as convenience retail.
Ownership makes this easier for Casey’s than for many of its rivals. It runs its own stores, so it can make operating changes across the business directly. Competitors relying on franchisees or dealers must persuade operators who will bear much of the cost and disruption. That gives Casey’s a structural advantage in addition to an execution advantage.
Casey’s edge comes from aligning its operating model with the customer proposition. That is much harder to copy than pizza. The 400 new stores will test whether the model travels as well as the menu.
I never thought of it this way, but turns out that there are tiers in the convenience store business just like there are tiers in the department store business. Fans of Buc-ee’s probably came to that conclusion long ago. Sounds like Casey’s is up at the Nordstrom level.
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Casey’s is firing on two cylinders: the essentials mission, served by its convenience and fuel offer; and the indulgence mission, driven by foodservice (especially pizza). The two often mutually reinforce each other, which helps to make Casey’s a destination over rivals and drives basket sizes and other metrics. This is all because Casey’s decided not to behave like a traditional convenience store in areas like foodservice and, instead, added value in the way that a good pizza joint or restaurant would. There’s a lesson there for all retailers: in everything you do, have the ambition to be best in class.
Casey’s success is real, but it’s not a ready-to-copy playbook; it’s an accumulated asset. Owned real estate, six years of stable leadership, and years of habituated trust in scratch-made food can’t be bought or rushed by competitors chasing the foodservice numbers overnight. That’s the genuine moat here. The harder question isn’t strategy; CEO Rebelez is right not to touch it. It’s operational: can 400 new stores in three years absorb the same leadership continuity and execution discipline that built the brand, or does rapid construction outpace the culture-building it depends on? Rivals can’t copy Casey’s. But Casey’s still has to prove it can copy itself at speed without losing what made the original stores work.
Casey’s is not winning because it sells pizza. It is winning because it built the business around why people come back.
The lesson for competitors is clarity. Casey’s understands the role it plays in the customer’s life, then aligns food, convenience, operations, and ownership around delivering that experience consistently.
Foodservice is not an add-on at Casey’s. It is a reason to visit, a reason to return, and a reason to spend more.
The next test is scale. Four hundred new stores will show whether Casey’s can grow the footprint while protecting the customer experience and operating discipline that made the model work.
With so many c-stores competing for the same fuel customer, giving people a reason to choose you beyond the pump is smart. Casey’s has built that in food, and it turns a routine fill-up into a two-for-one stop.
Rather than just thinking of expanding into different categories (in this case, restaurant items), Casey’s has discovered a new way to think about the convenience store business. As the original concept of the convenience store has changed, they recognize that the way they think of their business has to change. They realize they are not just in the gasoline-and-essentials business. This is what successful companies do. What got them there may not get them where they want to go in the future. There’s some risk in this kind of thinking, but understanding the customers’ changing expectations helps mitigate risk.
Casey’s will continue to see success because they are driven by a higher calling of differentiation, in saying they are not playing a c-store foodservice game, rather, playing the restaurant game. This creates a clear path into employee motivation, energy, and focus. From there, even the operating metrics will be different. Whether they actually get there doesn’t matter as much as the commitment to build that way, everyday. They can iterate, innovate, and improve from this statement alone.
The real lesson from Casey’s is not that convenience stores should sell more pizza. It is that once Casey’s decided it was competing in the restaurant business, it had to operate like one. Rebelez says as much in the piece. Casey’s is playing the restaurant game the way restaurants play it.
That changes how management thinks about labor scheduling, food preparation and waste. It raises the stakes for kitchen throughput, freshness and food safety. It should also change the measures used to run the business. A foodservice operation cannot be treated as just another merchandise category inside the store.
Competitors can copy the menu. They can install kitchens and add prepared food. The harder task is changing the operating model behind the offer. Store roles must be redesigned. Employees need different skills. Supply and replenishment must support fresh ingredients. Managers must understand restaurant economics as well as convenience retail.
Ownership makes this easier for Casey’s than for many of its rivals. It runs its own stores, so it can make operating changes across the business directly. Competitors relying on franchisees or dealers must persuade operators who will bear much of the cost and disruption. That gives Casey’s a structural advantage in addition to an execution advantage.
Casey’s edge comes from aligning its operating model with the customer proposition. That is much harder to copy than pizza. The 400 new stores will test whether the model travels as well as the menu.
I never thought of it this way, but turns out that there are tiers in the convenience store business just like there are tiers in the department store business. Fans of Buc-ee’s probably came to that conclusion long ago. Sounds like Casey’s is up at the Nordstrom level.