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The more things change, the more they stay the same

When I was growing up, the most popular convenience store around was Lawson's. I spent the majority of my childhood years in the Brunswick area, and it seemed that Brunswick had a Lawson's on every corner. That's where we got our favorites, such as Big O orange juice.

Lawson's was bought out by Dairy Mart in the eighties and we lost one of our local identities. I'm sure that especially hurt those of my readers from Cuyahoga Falls. Being funny about change myself, it was years before I would mention the DM word, calling it "Lawson's" instead. I knew other people who did the same. The other corporate identity it hurt this area to lose was Sohio.

Dairy Mart fell on hard times and had to close some of the old Lawson sites, keeping open mostly those that had self-serve gas pumps. Dairy Mart finally sold to Alimentation Couche-Tard, who closed the under performing stores, and re-branded the remaining stores to Circle K. Recently, Alimentation Couche-Tard also bought the Holland Oil convenience store chain in the Akron area and those stores have also become Circle K's.

Which brings me to yesterday. I had to do some errands around the Barberton-Norton area. I noticed that in an area of about three miles there are four Circle K stores, which by the way carry Lawson's chip dip. As I put it in the title "the more things change, the more they stay the same."

Comments

Anonymous said…
To the best of my knowledge, and I will check with some folks, Lawson's is still in business.... In Japan.
It was franchised or what ever there
and I believe is still going.

Mike Dane
May 06, 2007 7:24 PM
Cliff said…
Mike,

You are correct. The picture that I have on the post is from a Lawson's store in Japan.
May 06, 2007 8:03 PM
newsnomore said…
If you have ever tasted the everlovin' goodness that was Lawson's bread, that was the handiwork of my Dad.

My Mom also made the best chip dip in the world.

I had no idea there were still Lawson's in Japan...I never even knew there were Lawson's in Japan.

I was wondering why the 's was missing from the sign and what "station" was all about.

Didn't look quite right.

Thanks for the memories WIXY...
May 10, 2007 8:03 PM
newsnomore said…
Check this out.

http://www.lawson.co.jp/company/e/
May 10, 2007 8:07 PM
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