4 Things QuikTrip Does in Oklahoma That Other Gas Stations Gave Up On

A 2025 Newsweek and Statista survey ranked QuikTrip the third-best convenience store chain in the country, just 0.29 points behind Sheetz and behind only Buc-ee’s overall.

Shoppers scored every chain on the same five things: Products, customer service, atmosphere, accessibility, and store layout.

Many gas stations across the country have let those categories slide for years.

These are the things QuikTrip in Oklahoma has kept around long after other gas stations gave them up.

Free Air, No Quarters

QuikTrip’s Oklahoma stores list free air for your tires as a standing amenity, with a pump sitting out near the fuel islands at every location.

Not every station still bothers.

Many gas stations started charging for air once full-service pumps disappeared in the 1970s, when checking a driver’s tires stopped being part of the deal.

A coin slot went in where the free pump used to sit.

California requires stations to give paying customers free air by law, and Connecticut has a similar rule that doesn’t tie the requirement to a purchase at all.

Federal regulators worried back then that the fee would push drivers to skip tire checks altogether and raise the odds of a blowout.

QuikTrip’s Oklahoma stores never needed that law.

Open Around the Clock

QuikTrip keeps its Oklahoma stores open 24 hours a day, a policy the chain adopted company-wide back in 1976 and never walked back.

That’s nearly fifty years now.

Restaurants open past midnight fell 18% nationwide between 2020 and 2024, and gas station chains have been having the same conversation about overnight hours.

Wawa has cut back overnight hours at several stores in recent years, pointing to slow traffic after midnight.

A 76-store Hardee’s franchise operator closed several of its restaurants during the dinner segment without its parent company’s consent, arguing the longer hours were hurting profits.

QuikTrip hasn’t.

Drive by any Oklahoma QuikTrip at 3 a.m. and the lights and the doors are still open.

The clerk behind the register is still there too.

Restrooms Cleaned Every 30 Minutes

Does QuikTrip clean its Oklahoma bathrooms on a set schedule?

Every 30 minutes is the standard the company has promoted for years, and not a sign on the door nobody checks.

Gas station bathrooms haven’t always earned that kind of trust.

Restroom upkeep at fuel stops started sliding in the 1970s, once self-service replaced attendants and drivers began chasing the cheapest gas instead of the cleanest bathroom.

Interstate rest stops multiplied around the same time, so it got easier for a station to skip the upkeep and let a driver find a bathroom somewhere else.

Many stations still treat it that way.

Not here.

QuikTrip’s Oklahoma stores are the exception drivers still talk about.

Self-Serve Soda Fountains

QuikTrip has been rolling out new self-serve soda, tea, and slushie machines across its stores, with a goal of reaching every location by summer 2026 and up to 40 flavors available at some dispensers.

Fill your own cup, mix your own flavors, and top it off again before you leave.

Much of the industry moved the other way.

Convenience chains switched their fountains to clerk-served only when the pandemic hit in 2020, and McDonald's announced in 2023 that it would drop self-serve soda entirely by 2032.

QuikTrip went the other way.

A Kitchen Twice the Size

QuikTrip opened its newest store design this spring in Broken Arrow, the city's tenth QuikTrip and the first location built around a layout years in the making.

The project took nearly three years and more than 750 meetings with employees and customers before the doors opened.

Inside, the food-service area runs about double the footprint of a standard QuikTrip kitchen, built to keep pace with the lunch rush.

The restrooms got equal attention: Eight separate stalls line the back wall, several with baby-changing stations built in.

Big glass windows and a clear sightline from the register to the back of the store round out the design.

Worth the wait.

More stores like it are already planned for Tulsa, Wichita, and Joplin.

QT Pay, No Membership Needed

QuikTrip runs QT Pay, a payment app that links directly to a customer's checking account.

The app knocks 5 cents off every gallon and 5% off every in-store purchase, with the savings applied automatically and no card to swipe at the pump.

No membership required.

Compare that to the warehouse clubs, where Costco, Sam's Club, and BJ's all sell cheaper gas but only to members who pay an annual fee first.

A shopper has to buy the membership before they can buy the gas.

QuikTrip skips that step entirely.

One Store's Growth to 1,200

QuikTrip started as one store in Tulsa in 1958, opened by Burt Holmes and Chester Cadieux.

By 1962, that single store had grown to eight, and the young company had turned its first profit.

Five years later it ran 43 stores and brought in $5.5 million a year.

It's grown into more than 1,200 stores since, with the newest store opening in the Atlanta area earlier this year.

Growth that never stopped.