It has been reported to HHR that what is likely one of the first cases of Timewise rebranding is getting underway on the Northwest side of town. The transition is not unexpected and has been openly mentioned since Shell acquired Timewise from local ownership in June 2022. Since Timewise was mainly composed of Shell and Exxon outlets, the company split itself along those lines and sold its 64 Exxon stores to Global Partners earlier this year. Since then, little has happened with Global Partners, whose C-Stores are mostly in the Northeastern United States, opting to license the Timewise name and brands for the past few months. Global Partners operates five major brands but has not indicated which they plan to use in Houston. The first reports came in last weekend from a reader that new paint was being applied to the exterior of a Global Partners-owned Timewise, with no little to the old signage. The reader followed up on Wednesday that an interior remodel was also underway, with signage coming down inside. A visit by HHR revealed that while Timewise-branded soda fountains and coffee dispensers were still in use, employees wore generic “Exxon” aprons. If you live near an Exxon Timewise and would like to help keep HHR in the loop, please reach out via email or Facebook!
I’m not a C-store shopper for anything other than gasoline, but I do usually fill my car’s tank at Exxon and Mobil stations so I’m hoping that these former Timewise stations will continue to be good places to get gasoline as they were under Timewise and Exxon On The Run as they were before. I certainly appreciated that Timewise didn’t do cash price gimmicks, that they kept their pay at the pump machines stocked with receipt paper, and they generally had usable squeegees at the pumps. Unfortunately, a lot of other C-store operators around here fail at one or two of those things. 7-Eleven’s pumps often don’t have receipt paper which I’m sure is done to intentionally get people to go inside the C-store. FWIW, these ex-Timewise Exxons have been fine since they were sold off so I have reason to be optimistic.