The Daily Campus

Issue date: 1/28/08 Section: Focus

Media Credit: Erik Kong Convenience stores like Store24, the Union Central Exchange and the C-Store (above) are popular places to shop at UConn.

With the new Union Central Exchange Convenience Store opening up on the second floor of the Student Union, students may be wondering how it measures up to the other local area stores, including the C-Store at the Co-op, Store24 on Route 195 and Sam's (the old DB Mart) on North Eagleville Road.

To find out, The Daily Campus made a rough grocery list of things that students could possibly need and went to each store to see what kind of prices each store was charging for these items and how their hours compare to the others.

The list included: a gallon of milk, a dozen eggs, a box of Apple Jacks cereal, 12 oz. of peanut butter, strawberry jam, a loaf of bread, a 12-pack of cans of Diet Coke, a 2-liter bottle of Diet Coke, a can of Beefaroni, a packet of ramen noodles, a box of Easy Mac, a 12-ounce can of Red Bull energy drink, a pack of Trojan lubricated condoms, a tube of Colgate toothpaste and a stick of Lady Speed Stick deodorant. The reason for the specificity in brands and sizes is fairness - comparing the half-gallons of milk that Sam's sells to the gallons of milk that the C-Store sells would be unfair and misrepresentative.

For the final tallies on the grocery list, the items that not every store carried were omitted. Sam's and the C-Store did not carry eggs and neither the C-store nor the Union Central Exchange carried boxes of Easy Mac. Though the Union Central Exchange did not carry 12-ounce cans of Red Bull, they did have 16-ounce cans of Full Throttle and Rock Star that were used to calculate the cost of the shopping list there.

After sticking to only the items that all the stores carried and adding up all the pre-tax prices, Store24 turned out to be the cheapest, at $30.09. the Union Central Exchange came in a close second at $30.18 and the C-Store in third at $30.79. Even though it finished in last place, Sam's $33.99 wasn't too far off from the others.

Thankfully, hours are much more easily calculated.

Store24 has the best hours of any convenience store around here - no one can compete with 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They are open the most, with 168 hours per week. In second is the Union Central Exchange, which is open for 127 hours per week. The Union Central Exchange is open Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. until midnight and until 1 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. On Sundays, the store opens at 10 a.m. and closes at 11 p.m.

Continued...

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