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Rejuvenated
Circle K stores
return to isles
A new program to license the
By Russ Lynch
brand to others could result in
19 Hawaii sites within
five years
Star-BulletinCircle K convenience stores are coming back to Hawaii, with four stores opening by the end of next week and another 15 planned for the next five years.
The stores will operate as separate franchises attached to Union 76 gasoline stations, according to Tosco Marketing Co., the unit of Stamford, Conn.-based Tosco Corp. that owns the Circle K and 76 brands.
The first Circle K sign in Hawaii since 1992 is scheduled to be hoisted into place Wednesday morning at the Union 76 gas station at the corner of Beretania Street and Ward Avenue, replacing the Fastbreak sign.
Phoenix-based Tosco Marketing Co. said today that the Hawaii stores will be among the first in a program to license the Circle K brand to others. The company said it expects to open several hundred Circle K stores across the country.
Tosco is concentrating its Circle K franchising program on markets in California, Washington, Oregon and Hawaii for now but plans to move out to other states, executives said.
A starting point is the 76-brand gas stations, of which there are 59 in Hawaii.
Circle K Corp., then the second-biggest operator of convenience stores in the nation after 7-Eleven Inc., opened its first outlet in Hawaii in Kaneohe in 1986 and quickly built the total up to 25 in the islands. They were typical convenience stores carrying some groceries and packaged fast foods and featuring self-service gasoline pumps.
In 1990, the company filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In the reorganization it sold 20 Hawaii outlets in December 1990 to Texaco, which operated them as Texaco Inc. food marts at its gas stations. The remaining five Hawaii Circle K outlets were sold to Aloha Petroleum Ltd. in 1992, which was when the convenience stores' familiar signs finally disappeared from the islands.
