Birds & Words: The World's Largest Wawa

Thursday, December 20, 2018

The World's Largest Wawa

Entrance on Chestnut Street

When I read last week that Wawa had opened their largest store in Philadelphia's Public Ledger building, practically across the street from the Liberty Bell, I told Shari we had to go to add it to my "collection." Today we drove the 40 some odd miles west on Route 70 to the Ben Franklin Bridge, made a right and drove a mile, parked, walked two blocks and there it was. It was just like adding a life bird only completely different.

I don't know what was originally in the space but Wawa has repurposed it as a gigantic version of its suburban stores with 15,000 square feet of space allowing for seating to eat the offerings in-store. But aside from some Wawa apparel and a bakery selling baguettes that Shari said looked pretty good, it has all the stuff a regular Wawa would have--just spread out more with bigger aisles and fancier decor--you could actually just say "decor" since regular Wawas have none.

Wawa Panorama

Shari had the Philly cheese steak sandwich, I had the new chef salad, plus coffee. It seemed pretty expensive for a Wawa and that was partly because the prices are higher in the city than in NJ, but also because, I noticed when I looked at the receipt after I got home (of course I got a receipt as a souvenir) they overcharged me for the salad (I didn't order "extra meat") and I'm pretty certain they also overcharged me for the coffee, not taking into account the discount using my own mug brings, but I don't know what coffee in Philly costs. I also noticed that milk and their ice teas are way more expensive than what we pay around here. I felt like the little country mouse coming into the big city.

The building originally housed The Public Ledger (no surprise) which was a newspaper of varying quality that lasted from the early 1800's to 1942. Of interest to me was a plaque on the wall beside the entrance to Wawa that memorialized the Hoe rotary press, a revolutionary piece of printing equipment that was installed at The Public Ledger in 1846, quadrupling the printing rate of a flat bed press. The Hoe name was still on printing presses in newspaper plants when I was checking jobs back in the pre-digital days. However, when I reread the plaque I found that the original press was not in that building but one that was located 3 blocks away. I probably hadn't thought of the name "Hoe" in more than twenty-five years.

There's only so much time even I can spend in a Wawa, so after we finished our lunch and took a few more photos, we found something a little more cultural to do around Independence Mall.