Shell in September introduced its Shell Select brand to the U.S. with the opening of a prototype convenience store in Louisville, Kentucky, designed by Bona Design Lab, a global retail design and consulting firm.
According to veteran store designer and retail consultant Joseph Bona, president of Bona Design Lab, his team was tasked with helping Shell demonstrate its commitment to supporting its wholesale network in the U.S. through a strong, competitive convenience retail format. The Louisville store is operated by Estepp Energy, a Lexington, Kentucky-based wholesaler of Shell-branded motor fuel.
“Our mandate was to take the Shell Select global brand and adapt it to the U.S. market while creating a design that communicates the wholesaler’s local roots in Louisville,” Bona explained. “We’re proud to be one of the national and local suppliers that Shell Oil Products US selected to help them with this initiative.”
Louisville was tapped as an area to roll out the Shell Select c-store concept because of its vibrant local culture and reputation for unique food and beverage offers, the company says.
“We are excited to offer a new and unique experience for our customers,” said Gyongyver Menesi-Bondar, head of convenience retail for Shell Oil Products US. “Shell Select is different from traditional convenience stores in that it provides high-quality, fresh, culinary-inspired food and beverage options for customers who are on the go, and it also provides the ability to get in and out at your own pace without being slowed and without feeling rushed.”
The U.S. prototype was created for the site of a former Thornton’s fuel and c-store location that was acquired by Estepp Energy. Although the original store structure was retained, it received a complete redesign of the exterior and interior as well as a new layout. The thrust of the overall design, Bona said, was to create a strong food and beverage presentation that includes local touches and products.
That effort begins with the exterior, which Bona Design describes as a “strikingly modern piece of architecture” that incorporates an upscale outdoor seating area covered by an awning and screened in by greenery, with signage that invites customers to “Have a Seat and Chill.”
“We wanted to make sure that the architecture, including the outdoor seating, signals to people that this is a destination for food and beverage, with more than just the traditional convenience store categories,” Bona elaborated. “It is intended to disrupt people’s usual expectations of what they’ll find at a gas station.”
Inside the store, layout and design work together to put the focus on the consumable offerings. Customers entering the store immediately find self-serve beverages situated to their left, while facing an array of food products that fill the back wall. Although the store footprint measures 2,221 s.f., an open ceiling and the layout are intended to help create a space that feels spacious and is easy to navigate.
The interior treatment makes use of the Shell Select palette of colors and materials, but reinterprets them to underscore the central role of food and beverage, Bona said. Natural dark materials and warm wood tones work with LED lighting to create visual interest with highlights and contrasts within an overall ambience that is warm and inviting.
“We stayed away from the hectic graphic treatments and vivid colors that characterize a lot of older convenience store designs,” Bona commented. “We wanted to keep the food and other merchandise center stage and used lighting and fixtures to achieve that.”
A notable exception is a mural created by a local artist on one wall that presents a stylized map of Louisville, highlighting some of the iconic features the city is known for.
“This was the one area where we used graphics to create a local feeling,” Bona explained. “We wanted to make sure that the people of Louisville know this is a retailer with local roots who understands their tastes.”
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