I’ve been really struck these past couple of weeks by how ubiquitous 7-Eleven is in Stockholm and Copenhagen. It’s all the more striking because before I went to Stockholm the only European 7-Eleven I’d ever seen was in the Copenhagen Airport while switching planes en route to Helsinki. But in these two cities, the chain appears to have far more outlets than in any American city I’ve ever been to.
At any rate, it turns out that my visits to Iceland, Finland, France, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Iceland, and the Czech Republic never turned up any 7-Elevens because they don’t have any in those countries. In Europe they operate exclusively in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. The Scandinavian version of 7-Eleven is actually brought to us by Norway’s Reitan Group operating under license from the original company, and the individual stores are franchises. It’s basically what you get at home, though in keeping with the general Nordic vibe things are a bit more spic and span. The main difference I can see is that in Copenhagen you can buy hard liquor at 7-Eleven.
Sweden, by contrast, has a North Carolina-style system where you can only buy booze at the government liquor store. They also have an equally ubiquitous home-grown Swedish convenience store chain in Stockholm called Pressbyrån that I liked a lot.