la.foodblogging

Being that today is 7/11/07, the day that 7-Eleven gives out Free Slurpees, it is appropriate to tell the tail of my trip to the Kwik-E-Mart.

There are two 7-Elevens in the Los Angeles area that have been converted to Kwik-E-Marts for the month of July. I dropped into the West LA store, on Sepulveda and Venice for a Squishee and a walk around.

The front of the 7-Eleven has been made over with a facade of the Simpson’s favorite convenience store. You can see Bart and Millhouse riding their sugar high up on the roof. You can also see the line of people waiting to get inside.

Unfortunately, by the time we arrive, most of the special products are sold out. No more Buzz Cola, KrustyOs or Radioactive Man Comic Books. I suspect that the Chutney Squishee is a joke, I didn’t see a dedicated spigot inside. There are people everywhere, so I’m sure that inventory gets snapped up soon after it arrives.

There is Chief Wiggum, doing what stereo typical cops do, enjoying his donut. I tried to play a game of “got your gun” but he wasn’t having it. He also got one of the pink donuts, we were hoping to try one, but they too had been snatched up.

There are other characters sprinkled throughout the store.

Homer double fists some hot dogs and Apu greets his customers.

A slew of signs have been posted around the store, to remind you that this is Apu town now:

Now, my real bounty for this trip was to score a Squishee. Yes, it’s just a rebranded Slurpee in a collectible cup, but it’s a little taste of my Simpson’s obsession, and it tasted sweeeet (literally and figuratively).

Was the Kwik-E-Mart hyped? Yes. Was it fun? For me. Is it corporate pandering? Yes. Am I impressed that 7-Eleven got in on the joke? Yes.

Marge With her Groceries, The Bank of Springfield ATM

Who Needs a Kwik-E-Mart

By Jonah (see more of his posts). Jonah is the founder of la.foodblogging and also created Digesty, a food blog aggregator and Cheww.com, a spam free foodblog search engine.