Kwik Trip Acquires PDQ Food Stores

La Crosse-based Kwik Trip is buying out a rival convenience store chain also based in Wisconsin — PDQ Food Stores.

Kwik Trip announced Wednesday it’s acquiring 34 PDQ stores. Most of the stores are located in the Madison area with a few near Milwaukee and Fond du Lac.

Kwik Trip spokesman David Niemi said the purchase is part of the company’s strategy to add more stores in the Madison beltline.

“Our future growth plan includes putting some stores there, and now that PDQ is looking to offer them to us, we’d say that’s a good time for us to go ahead and say, ‘Let’s acquire them,’” Niemi said.

PDQ’s corporate office is in based in Middleton. The company has 420 employees and has been employee-owned since 2009 through an employee stock ownership plan.

“(Our plan) would add probably 400-500 jobs to the current base of those employees that are there,” Niemi said. “We certainly want to make sure that all of the co-workers’ values match our company values and that our culture fits with the current employees to make sure that they have opportunity to continue serving at those stores.”

Niemi said the company is encouraging PDQ employees to apply for the Kwik Trip jobs at the newly acquired locations, but every applicant, whether they worked at PDQ or not, will go through the same hiring process.

The stores being acquired by Kwik Trip will continue under the PDQ name until October, when they’ll close for renovations. Niemi said the stores are expected to re-open under the Kwik Trip brand in mid-2018.

Kwik Trip has 566 stores in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa and has 19,000 employees.