Yesway, the 15th-largest convenience-store operator in the United States, presented its fuel, food, and expansion strategy at the Goldman Sachs Global Consumer and Retail Conference on Monday, Sept. 14, 2026. The company, which operates 450 locations across nine states spanning the Midwest, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Oklahoma, reported $2.99 billion in trailing-twelve-month revenue and $228.53 million in EBITDA as of the second quarter.
Chief Executive Tom Trkla said the firm drew on its founding thesis from 2015 — when he started Brookwood private-equity platform and acquired a 10-store portfolio in Iowa — to justify continued geographic scaling. "We chose the business, we chose the location, and looking back now, 10 and a half, 11 years later, we kind of proved our original thesis in terms of the consumer and the business itself," Trkla said.
Yesway filed its final IPO prospectus with the SEC on April 21, 2026, pricing a raise of approximately $820 million. It completed 27 merger-and-acquisition deals since inception, most notably acquiring the Allsup’s brand in November 2019, which added 305 stores.
Expansion and capital allocation
The company reaffirmed a five-year plan to open 130 new stores, targeting six to eight openings in 2026. Over the prior four years, Yesway constructed 92 new stores through its build-to-suit program, deploying roughly $1 billion. Typical builds take 12 to 18 months; Trkla noted the firm can accelerate to 20 to 40 completions annually once capital deployment ramps.
Financial terms for new developments carry a hurdle rate of 15% on an unlevered basis and about 30% on a levered basis for build-to-suit projects. Yesway owns approximately 65% of its real estate portfolio, and stores average between 5,600 and 6,000 square feet. A smaller 3,900-square-foot format is being tested where land availability is constrained.
Fuel operations
Same-store fuel volumes rose 1.4% in the second quarter, according to Yesway. Diesel accounts for roughly 38% of total fuel sales, with newer stores running a diesel mix above 40%. Diesel spreads have historically been as high as 14 cents per gallon over gasoline; the company disclosed a 5-cent spread in its S-1 filing.
CFO Ericka Ayles said fuel margins are expected to stabilize at or near historical levels. "Structurally we are in a higher CPG environment," she said. "We do anticipate, when we think about where do fuel margins go from here, we would expect … to level set somewhere higher or at a minimum equal to where we started."
Food and merchandise
Food service remains a core growth driver. Yesway sells 24 million Allsup’s burritos annually at $4.99 each, compared with competing burritos priced between $6 and $7. Another 41 million proprietary frozen-fried items move each year, and two food-service items alone represent 50% of category sales. Chicken nuggets rank as the third-best-selling food item.
The food-service footprint occupies roughly 300 square feet, supported by staffing levels of about 2.6 employees per shift, with a single employee able to manage an entire operation.
Private-label products account for roughly 9% of inside sales (excluding cigarettes). Other tobacco-product margins run two to three times higher than cigarette margins. Category management and SKU rationalization are about two-thirds complete, according to the company.
Financial overview and market data
Yesway trades around $22.70, down $0.25 in intraday trading, with a market capitalization of $1.45 billion and an EV/EBITDA ratio of 8.91. EPS came in at $2.63 over the trailing twelve months, with $3.07 forecast for fiscal 2026. Gross profit margin sits near 21%, and revenue is projected to grow 22% for the fiscal year. The company said it is capable of running an entire shift — including food service — with just one employee, and expects to continue testing smaller-format stores as land constraints persist.
