The World’s Original Convenience Store

Today is July 11th, 7-11. Sound familiar? With 46,000 locations in 16 countries, 7-11 is the largest franchise company in the world. It even beats McDonald’s and Subway. Its headquarters are in Dallas and that’s where the first 7-11 opened in 1927.

Its parent company, Southland Corporation, originally made ice in the days before refrigerators. An employee of one of those ice houses came up with the idea of selling milk, eggs, bread and a few other essentials out of a storefront attached to the ice house. That little storefront became the first convenience store.

And another thing a lot of people think of when you say 7-11 is SLURPEE. The frozen flavored drink was introduced in 1967 under license from the man who invented it.

Omar Knedlik owned an ice cream and soda shop in the late 1950s and when the soda fountain broke down he had to put the sodas in a freezer to keep them cold. Sometimes they got a little slushy, but that was ok because people loved them. So he invented a machine to make slushees all the time. He hired a woman to create a name and a logo came up with ICEE.

7-11 negotiated with Knedlik to buy and use his machines, but original conditions of the deal were that the product could only be sold in 7-11’s and they’d have to come up with a different name. 7-11 introduced SLURPEE (because of the sound you make when you drink them.)