Sheetz continues expansion with new central Ohio gas station

LANCASTER, Ohio (WCMH) -- Convenience store chain Sheetz is continuing its expansion into Ohio with another Columbus-area gas station.

The chain's newest location opened in late July at 1748 N. Memorial Drive in Lancaster, the chain announced. The opening comes after the brand also launched a new convenience store and gas station on a previously wooded lot at 4881 Roberts Road near Hilliard.

The Pennsylvania-based gas station chain announced its expansion into central Ohio in 2019, with the first location open at 710 Sunbury Road in Delaware in April 2021 and thirteen additional locations open in the following months. Sheetz said they plan to open a dozen new stores annually in the Columbus area through 2025.

A new Sheetz gas station is also coming to Gahanna after a real state group's third proposal was approval. Plans call for the location to be built on the southern portion of the 2.9-acre lot at 530 Tech Center Drive, with a drive-thru and six fuel pumps covered by a canopy. The plot is currently undeveloped.

Sheetz is expanding by bulldozing several central Ohio restaurants, including a chicken wing eatery and several Max and Erma’s locations. The chain has taken over the former Max and Erma's site at 7480 Sawmill Road in Dublin, according to a Columbus city permit. Glacier Restaurant Group closed this location and the brand’s other Dublin restaurant at 411 Metro Place North in 2020.

The site of Woody’s Wing House, a bulldozed restaurant that replaced Champps, is also now home to a gas station after the property was bought for more than $3 million by Sheetz. The new location opened in May at 161 E. Campus View Boulevard in Worthington, a two-acre site the gas station purchased for $3,750,000 last August before Woody’s permanently shuttered in October. The restaurant building converted from a Champps before it began operating as a wing house in late 2017.

Max and Erma's at 4279 Cemetery Road in Hilliard was demolished in 2021 after the restaurant had been closed for more than a year, with the site now home to a Sheetz.