Battle of the Bulges: Wawa line moves farther north

The opening of Wawa in Parsippany - Troy Hills this winter makes it Wawa's northernmost New Jersey location. It eclipses Phillipsburg, which previously held the title since 2008.

This has created another bulge in the Wawa map. The problem is there are many people in the middle of these two extensions who are still far from a Wawa, thus making the map somewhat deceiving.

Many, like their non-shaded brethren, are hoagie refugees

Wawa and Remembering Harry Kalas

Your local NJ Wawa is the exclusive seller for Rich Wolfe's, Remembering Harry Kalas. However, NOT all New Jersey Wawas are selling the below book.

Phone calls and visits to local Wawas in the "Central" areas of the state gave us this map:

The Red Counties represent those with Wawas that ALL sell the book.

The Blue Counties represent those that do not have any Wawas.

The Blank Counties have been singled out.

A "P" means that the Wawa had the book.

The "N" means that the Wawa didn't sell the book.

Two in disputed territories say that they had the book, but that it sold out.

Wawa line moves farther North

This happened in August 2008. Sorry for being late, but we did mention it earlier. Below is the new Wawa map.

The most astounding thing? In the story - they call it, "A hoagie making showdown."

The new Wawa is in Phillipsburg, which is above I-78. This further points to our thesis that New Jersey's dividing line is cultural and not geographic.
Though it is a stretch to put ALL of the new area below in pink, most do have easy access to many Wawas across the river in PA (like Lambertville does in New Hope).

Shore Locals to adopt Philly customs to separate themselves from North Jerseyans?

Just like hipsters in 2002 embraced Pabst Blue Ribbon . . . thereby starting a trend, the same thing could be happening at the North Jersey shore with sports teams. Allow me to elaborate first:

I got a lot of flack when I put up the sports' loyalty line. Mostly they were from Monmouth and Ocean County people - who continue to insist they share no possible common traits with the dreaded "Bennys" from North Jersey and beyond - though people in Burlington County and south would strongly disagree.

An interesting observation is that this "Benny" thing is becoming so ingrained into the Shore population's consciousness, even little kids are on board and you also heard about Belmar's mayor. To me it parallels the rise of groups like Benny Go Home who are championing the cause of locals at the shore, and are getting a much bigger and loyal following in the past couple years.

They're very articulate guys with interesting views on how visitors affect the shore: from abuse of eminent domain to cyclical trends on the decaying and revitalizations of shore towns, and how tourists fit into these equations. But other locals have taken the "word use" to a different level - claiming it relates to only guidos or all non-beach people. They have hijacked it, in some cases, and applied it to all North Jerseyans and Staten Islanders, amongst others. . . where the guys at BGH just define it as rude tourists from anywhere.

But now there has been more of an effort from some shore locals to separate themselves further from those up north - after my "pale attempts to paint them as brother and sister" as one reader wrote in. Some have emailed me that the shore sports teams are different. Where in North NJ - the Giants, the Yankees and Rangers are the teams du jour, at the Shore they would much rather follow the Mets and Jets - like Long Islanders - but split when it comes to their home state and have the strongest showing of support for the New Jersey Devils.

But more and more people have tried to hint that they also support the Philly teams (some claim it was their parents), like the Phillies and Eagles and Sixers (but not the Flyers) and like using the word hoagie recently because of the abundance of Wawas.

This weird, but noticeable trend in emails and comments to my posts have brought up this question: Like those hipsters who fueled PBR's comeback - could the people at the North Jersey Shore, whom I consider to be on the cutting edge of NJ culture - because of the great music scene and the skate and surf culture there - actually start to think it is cool to adopt some South Jersey/ Philadelphia customs to truly and finally separate themselves from the Bennys once and for all? Being that the word has seemingly become synonymous with North Jerseyans and New Yorkers, could it be something that could happen there?
Not likely . . . . "the city" will NEVER be Philly to the North Jersey Shore people . . . but watch out for other interesting developments there.

Wawa's Hoagiefest . . . changing the name game?

Wawa is expanding so much. Now they have a very aggressive marketing campaign promoting their $2.99 shorties. But its biggest effect could be to get you to call the sandwich a "Hoagie" and not a "Sub." This media blitz comes complete with Sgt. Pepper inspired art and a very catchy theme song on their website.



It all brings up a big question for me. In the areas of Ocean, Monmouth, Middlesex, Somerset and Hunterdon they definitely call it a "sub." But with all of these new Wawas there, could Wawa actually change their language? Could people in Red Bank, Hillsborough, Point Pleasant and East Brunswick use the word hoagie more often after this ubiquitous campaign? I see the vans and posters nearly everywhere south of the Wawa line. I also think our documentary has inspired t-shirts . . . . if we just had interns, I would have had time to come up with this:

Oh well . . . but if you have eaten at a Wawa in the past month . . have you called it a hoagie inadvertently?

PS - I am using Firefox's browser for this entry and its spell check does NOT recognize the word - hoagie . . there's red all over this post!

Wawa line chaning?

In our travels throughout the state (and some of the hits to this blog have revolved around this), people wonder why there are no Wawas in Northern New Jersey. Well, the short answer is that there were (I think). It is hard to find on the web, many a search has resulted in message boards with people debating that there used to be one near the Meadowlands and another one in NE NJ. The most referenced reason for Wawas not being in Northern NJ (at least explanations on the web with no citing) was that: 1) They couldn't compete with 7-11 and Quick Check. 2) One of the reasons some people have wrote or said this is that it is because, they don't sell porrnography or lottery tickets (due to Wawas' Quaker roots). I don't know if the Northern NJ market is more apt to buy lottery tickets or porrnography compared to Southern NJ, but the reasons are unclear and Wawa is not very open to press inquiries. Well, there are rumors that White Twp. in Warren County is talking about building a Super Wawa(a Wawa with a gas station). These huge Wawas seem to be clubbing competition in other ares of the Mid-Atlantic. This would be the furthest north Wawa in the State (and would drastically alter our "Wawa Line". Well, White Twp., being in the Lehigh Valley Metro Area, is a safe bet for Wawa with its home base in the state of Pennsylvania. Let's watch and see if this represents a pattern (I hope so - I'm in Hoboken - no Wawas in sight)!

Here is the map of the furthest north Wawas in the state up until this posting.


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