Easton's Larry Holmes Drive Wawa is not the worst-reviewed Sheetz in Pennsylvania

EASTON, Pa. — The Wawa on Larry Holmes Drive is not the worst-reviewed Sheetz in the commonwealth.

Congratulations, Easton? You did it?

Allow us to explain.

In a recent analysis by Lanc Local aiming to answer the eternal question of Sheetz vs. Wawa, the organization went over Google reviews to establish standout locations throughout Pennsylvania.

Parameters included most-reviewed, highest-rated, most 5-star reviews and most 1-star reviews.

Under the banner of “Sheetz with most 1-star reviews” appeared a curious entry: 310 Larry Holmes Drive, which apparently accrued 96 such reviews.

That perplexed us here at LehighValleyNews.com — being we’re in Easton quite frequently, and have yet to see a Sheetz on Larry Holmes Drive.

Now, there are two Sheetz in the Easton area: Store #522 at 3501 Nazareth Road and Store #680 at 100 Trolley Line Drive, Building B1, both in Palmer Township.

Neither of those buildings have relocated to Larry Holmes Drive to take over their competitor.

Of course, we believe in diligent journalism here.

After some intensive research (we looked down the street after exiting a meeting at city hall) to double-check whether that Wawa had converted to a Sheetz at lightning speed only to be trashed by Google reviews (it had not). It was clear a mistake had been made.

Restoring the Wawa's honor

Furthermore, that Wawa only had about 89 Google reviews total at the time, so the analysis by Lanc Local appeared to be violating the laws of mathematics.

In fact, that particular Wawa has a respectable 3.5/5 for its Google reviews, with plenty of 5-stars that commended the efficient, quality service from the staff.

Numerous 1-star reviews appeared upset that the customer wasn’t permitted to use the bathroom, so if that’s your metric for a convenience store, avoid this spot.

Rest assured, we take those data sets and analyses seriously. Most of the time. At least sometimes.

After LehighValleyNews. com raised concerns with an official from Lanc Local, the company graciously admitted to the fault, and revealed the truth: The real offender was a Sheetz at 3025 Babcock Blvd., Pittsburgh.

Oddly, the sender asked whether we noticed any other discrepancies in their work. Being that none of the other title-holding convenience store/sandwich shops were in the Lehigh Valley, we didn't.

The report quickly was corrected and the honor of the Larry Holmes Drive Wawa was restored.

The location has 251 reviews in total, and even though it holds the honor(?) of most 1-star reviews, they average a 3.0 overall.

So not too bad. Even if they don’t cash out lottery ticket winnings over $100, and sometimes a manager might chase you outside and baselessly accuse you of stealing $2 in hotdogs. (That's according to actual reviews.)

To the store’s credit, they do appear to respond to most of those complaints, so at least someone is paying attention.

No real solution

Oh, as for the answer to who is best: According to the Lanc Local report, we don’t really know.

The report cites that average Google reviews across all Sheetz and Wawas with gas stations hover around the same figure, with Wawa ever so slightly winning with 3.805 out of 5 to Sheetz’s 3.748 out of 5.

Intriguingly, Wawa customers leave reviews 11.9% more often than Sheetz customers, the report states.

The reasoning there is up for debate, but personally, we believe it has something to do with the HBO series "Mare of Easttown," an opinion largely backed by Eater Philadelphia writer Dayna Evans’s 2021 story ’Mare of Easttown’ May Be Over, but Wawa Is Forever.

“Kate Winslet was the show’s star but Wawa was its backbone,” Evans wrote before detailing how actor Evan Peters, who played detective Colin Zabel on the show, said during a press cycle, “Wawa is incredible. It’s a one-stop shop. It’s got everything in there."

So maybe Kate Winslett made America fall in love with Wawa.

“If we were to use the volume of reviews as an indicator of fanbase strength, it could suggest a slightly more passionate following for Wawa compared to Sheetz," the Lanc Local report concludes non-authoritatively.

"While this might be a stretch, it does correlate with our finding that 37.9% more people are searching for Wawas on Google than Sheetz.”

But let’s return to our neck of the woods and just enjoy the fact that our Wawa is… pretty good?

Yeah, let’s go with that.