Kwik Trip announced that it intends to nearly double its Kwik Star presence in South Dakota by opening five new locations in 2024. The company will open three more locations in Sioux Falls, one in Brookings and one in Harrisburg, Keloland News reported.

The company first expanded into South Dakota, it’s sixth operating state, in the second half of 2023. The company opened six stores, all in the Sioux Falls market, during 2023.

“It’s been great. We have really enjoyed getting into the Sioux Falls market,” said Ben Leibl, a company spokesperson. “We felt like it just made sense for us to look at expanding. We’ve been very happy with the success that we’ve experienced in Sioux Falls to this point and we’re very excited to continue that growth in South Dakota.”

When Kwik Trip first announced that it was expanding into South Dakota, the company said it sees Sioux Falls as “definitely a dynamic, growing market.”

Troy Mleziva, director of real estate at Kwik Trip, said “We’re in the upper Midwest, and it seems like common sense with the type of community we like to operate in and have been successful in. We think the customer base and opportunity to be of service will be a good match for us.”

According to Keloland News, Kwik Trip fan Brooke Muhlack, a Sioux Falls resident who grew up in Wisconsin, has been asking the convenience store to come to South Dakota for a long time. For years, she would post on Kwik Trip Facebook posts asking them to expand into South Dakota, ending her comment with #JustSaying.

Muhlack was contacted by Kwik Trip, and the company sent her a big box. “I open it up and there’s a little card in there saying it’s from your friends at Kwik Trip. There were like 13 t-shirts in this box. It had the outline of Sioux Falls and a little Kwik Star building with ‘Coming soon’ and then at the bottom it said #JustSaying,” Muhlack said.

Since the company’s expansion, Muhlack said that she has already visited all six stores in the Sioux Falls market.

“It’s just a kind of running joke too that everyone says, ‘Well, it’s just a gas station.’ No, it is a way of life,” she said. “People you do not understand, this is a way of life. This is more than a gas station. It’s a convenience store.”