The 7-Eleven convenience store on Knox Road will close for renovations that store owner Million Mekonen says will take several weeks to finish.
Faithful patrons of the downtown 7-Eleven will have to get their midnight snacks and early morning coffee elsewhere during the latter half of finals week as the store shuts its doors for renovations.
The 7-Eleven on Knox Road will close next Wednesday at midnight for a full remodeling, which is expected to take four to five weeks, according to store owner Million Mekonen. He said that while it is hard to say whether all the renovations will be complete by the time school starts up again on Jan. 24, he is aiming to reopen the store for service by then.
Mekonen said the goal of the remodeling is to expand the store in a way that will maximize storage and service space, but he added that he is still working out the details of the new floor plan with the contractors.
“We’ve been having space issues where space is so tight in the store,” Mekonen said. “We want better service space, better counters, maybe more registers.”
For several regular student patrons, hearing that their go-to stop for quick essentials will be closed for half of finals week came as an unpleasant surprise.
“It’ll be very inconvenient, seeing as I have exams Friday and Thursday, because this is where I get my coffee,” junior marketing major Austin Gambino said. “I mean, it’s not the biggest deal in the world, but it’s still a pain in the ass.”
Other students had the same negative reaction.
“I love 7-Eleven,” senior government and politics major Dean Lacko said. “They should have put up a sign or something. I mean, where the hell am I going to get my snacks now?”
Other students said it would not be too much trouble to find alternatives, such as the 24-hour CVS Pharmacy across the street or the 7-Eleven near the intersection of Route 1 and Berwyn Road. But for some, the convenient location and small-convenience-store feel of the downtown 7-Eleven can’t be matched.
“The thing with CVS is it’s so big,” Lacko said. “I mean, here you walk in and you know exactly where everything is, and it’s all easy to find, but in CVS, it’s like a process.”
The 7-Eleven will be closing the same day that the China Café next door reopens. It has been closed and undergoing a full remodel since mid-November.
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