Pride Stores Opens ‘Restaurant Within a Convenience Store’

The Massachusetts location was transformed into a Pride Kitchen location.

July 18, 2018

WEST SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – Pride Stores opened a completely redesigned restaurant/convenience store in Massachusetts with a focus on fresh food, MassLive.com reports. The renamed Pride Kitchen location in West Springfield, Mass., boasts a bakery counter, deli case, flavored coffee and grill, as well as gas pumps outside and traditional c-store merchandise.

“I call it a restaurant within a convenience store,” said Pride Stores CEO Robert Bolduc during the store’s grand opening last week. “You can get anything here that you would get in a restaurant. And it's all fresh, we don't do anything frozen.”

Pride has been retrofitting its stores with the Pride Kitchen concept. So far, 10 locations have the new foodservice menu, with that number soon to rise to 15 out of its 35 locations. “And more to come,” he said. “As we renovate and upgrade, this is what we'll do to all of them. Any new [store] we do will be like this.”

For the century-old Pride, it’s been a huge—but necessary—change to keep up with what today’s customers are clamoring for. Bolduc has made the changes slowly, first adding delis, more coffee options, drive-thrus and hot sandwiches. “This is the way the industry is going,” he said. 

Another new Pride location will open in Hadley, Mass., next month with 12 superchargers for electric vehicles, as well as a Pride Kitchen.

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