r/baseball • u/Goosedukee New York Yankees • Jul 23 '25

Image Rich Hill makes his first appearance in a Royals uniform. This is the 14th team Hill has played for, tying an MLB record

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91

u/doublol91 Houston Astros Jul 23 '25

funny enough, QuikTrip is a private company that doesn't offer franchising (like chick fil a), they're all owned by corporate. 

I googled this because I wanted to buy stock after going to one after another they was spotless, well lit, and staffed by real human beings. 

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u/IONTOP Arizona Diamondbacks Jul 23 '25

Rich Hill looks like the CEO of the Royals on Undercover Boss

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u/extralyfe Jul 23 '25

"Can you just finish out this inning, please? So I can go have my muffin? I haven't had my muffin yet, Rich."

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u/LagOutLoud Kansas City Royals Jul 23 '25

I'd buy QT stock in a heartbeat. Incredibly well run company AND they pay their staff pretty well.

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u/Unclassified1 Chicago Cubs Jul 23 '25

Meanwhile, it seems Circle K's lines have only gotten even longer even with their robot AI checkout machine that is easily mistaken at first glance for a 3D printer

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u/lava172 Arizona Diamondbacks Jul 23 '25

Circle K is so location dependent you’re either getting a pretty decent gas station experience or the worst shit imaginable

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u/BoosherCacow Cleveland Guardians Jul 23 '25

We have two within a half mile of each other on a rural highway where I live. One is newly remodeled and great and they have that weird checkout thing that works pretty well but they also also have a couple of real people there at all times. The other one apparently only has one employee whose only emotion or engagement is annoyance when he sees a customer, and the store always smells like the inside of a terminally ill water buffalo's alimentary canal.

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u/IONTOP Arizona Diamondbacks Jul 23 '25

RIP 44th/Washington Circle K that sold liquor....

That bus stop to go north on 44th was an.... Adventure...

For those unaware:

44th/Washington is a light rail stop, 44th/Washington is also where the SkyTrain from the Light Rail to the Airport Terminals is, 44 bus goes north/south from the Airport to as far north as the Mayo Clinic (IIRC) (And the Terminus of the Light Rail on the last train of the night)

That bus stop had a mix of "tourists who have never been on a bus", Airport employees who take it every day, homeless people, drunk homeless people...

It had EVERYTHING... (Oh, and I guess "general public" as well)

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u/waffels Detroit Tigers Jul 23 '25

Why you buying anything at a circle K?

28

u/2RINITY New York Yankees Jul 23 '25

Because strange things are afoot there

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u/JGG5 Washington Nationals Jul 23 '25

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u/Unclassified1 Chicago Cubs Jul 23 '25

If I’m really desperate for caffeine. I always regret it even as I’m doing it.

1

u/axle69 St. Louis Cardinals Jul 23 '25

Circle K has amazing taco pizzas

1

u/Regular_Custard_4483 Jul 23 '25

Ayy, I worked on those! They're terrible!

What most people don't know about those machines is that there's actually two components to them. The scanner scanning your items, and the mechanical cash acceptors. I worked on the mechanical portion, and they're cool little machines!

However, the people that shop at Circle K are deranged assholes that see a hole in something, and they just put trash and stuff in it. Just in case the cash acceptor turns out to be the backseat of their thrashed Nissan Sentra.

I found a pair of earrings in one. A lot of bobby pins. Band aids, obviously. You know those big round Lindt Truffles? I once pulled three of them out of the change side. My brother found a cashed hypodermic. Endless stickers.

Stickers are the worst, because you may know that there's a sticker blocking a sensor, you may even know exactly where it is. But can you get it out in the tiny space available to maneuver, and not leave anything behind on that sensor? Maybe!

That, and the people that work there do not care about anything, and in fact are not paid enough to be required to care. If Circle K paid their employees, those machines would work.

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u/doublol91 Houston Astros Jul 24 '25

circles of hell ... circle k ... coincidence?

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u/JinFuu Houston Astros Jul 23 '25

I did spend time wondering whether I should put "Franchise Owner" or something like "Regional Manager" and what would be more accurate before shrugging.

You are right that QTs are mostly very well run places.

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u/fromthedarqwaves Jul 23 '25

If you work at QT they have private stock. My BIL retired from QT as a truck driver.

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u/MozzieKiller Jul 23 '25

Wait until you visit a Kwik Trip/Kwik Star (as they are called in QuikTrip territory)!

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u/jstewart25 St. Louis Cardinals Jul 23 '25

Try Casey’s stock if you’re looking for something similar. They’re popping up everywhere and they’re really nice. Fantastic pizza, good other food.

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u/Narrow_Scallion_9054 Jul 23 '25

But chic fil a totally does franchises

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u/doublol91 Houston Astros Jul 24 '25

All the locations are chosen by corporate to maximize traffic, it's the opposite of a franchise structure. 

0

u/TheBeefiestSquatch Texas Rangers Jul 23 '25

It's not a traditional franchise agreement though. I remember reading once that Magic Johnson owns like 40 Burger Kings or something like that? You're only allowed one Chik-fil-a. There's a whole list of things you are contracted that you can't do that would take your focus away from the location and you pretty much have to be there full time. They take the majority of the profits. In return, they take care of basically everything and you only need to invest like 10 grand or something ridiculously low like that and you don't need near the liquidity that would be required to open something like a McDonald's. You're basically a store manager except you get like 250-300k a year. It's the most difficult place to get a franchise of, but it's a license to print money.

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u/doublol91 Houston Astros Jul 24 '25

Not quite lol you can definitely clean up as a cfa operator, they get 50% profit share after corporate takes their 15% off the top from straight revenue. Also I think corporate is the only one who can decide to create a location, and they just hire a local operator

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u/TheBeefiestSquatch Texas Rangers Jul 24 '25

I'm half remembering stuff I half read years ago. You're probably right. I'm just doing my part to help fuck up google's ai, I guess.

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u/Regular_Custard_4483 Jul 23 '25 edited Jul 23 '25

I have only one hot take today, and this is it.

Kwik Trip is better than Buc-ees. There, I said it. I'm tired of pretending it's not true. Yes, Buc-ees has gestures broadly at nearest Buc-ees that, but KT is just the perfect sized and stocked gas station convenience store, and their hot food is actually pretty good.

It's harder to in/out Buc-ees, just due to the fuckin' scope of the place, but KT? Spend as much time or as little as you want. And by golly if you're in Wisconsin, you better believe they have a case stocked with local cheese and meat. Which I ate a lot of, and was all delicious.

Man, I need to order more cheese sticks from Wisconsin. Best string cheese of my life.

ETA) I realized I was thinking of Kwik Trip, not Quik Trip. Nothing confusing about that shit. I live in New England. Our gas stations are dogshit.

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u/TheBeefiestSquatch Texas Rangers Jul 23 '25

QT and Buc-ees aren't competitors, though. QT is a really nice gas station. Buc-ees is whatever the hell it is and they also sell a shit ton of gas (but I'd bet 90 percent of their customers aren't buying gas). You can have a QT on a single city block and still have room for plenty else. You can't have a Buc-ees in city limits because they're so massive.

I live in the middle of DFW. The closest Buc-ees to me is like 45 minutes away close to Texas Motor Speedway. There are four QT stations within five minutes of me.

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u/Regular_Custard_4483 Jul 23 '25

Hilariously, as I was writing that whole thing out, I was specifically thinking of the Bucees in Denton, which is probably the one you're talking about as well.

I actually didn't even mean QT, I meant KT, and that's fuckin' annoying too. I don't even like QT that much, and they don't deserve to be in the same sentence as KT, but here we are.