Friday, February 9, 2018

If you can't come to the gas station, the gas station will come to you

Jacob Menard
Miguel Anzo
     Jacob Menard is a lanky 25-year-old who works for his uncle Gerald at Amazing Lock Service. He sports a stainless steel post through his right eyebrow, a number of tattoos, and an understated blue stocking cap advertising Cresco, a Chicago medical marijuana dispensary.
     The young man drives a gray 2013 Volkswagen Passat. On Monday, he contrived to get the car’s gas tank filled without the vehicle ever leaving its parking space behind his uncle’s shop at 3165 N. Halsted Street.
     This feat was achieved through Yoshi Inc., a new automobile fill-up and maintenance service that began operating last year in Atlanta, Austin, Nashville, Los Angeles and San Francisco, expanding into Chicago on Feb. 1.
     They approached me to cover their launch last week. I asked if I could instead see an average customer.
      “You do have customers, right?” I said.
     I expected a corporate lawyer having his Land Rover topped off in a downtown office building parking garage while he racked up the billable hours. 
     I didn’t expect a fresh-faced kid who works as a service technician and sings hip-hop on the side. Why would a guy like that pay $20 a month for a service to deliver gasoline to his car? (the first month is free) charging the average per gallon rate AAA is reporting that day? What’s wrong with gas stations?


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10 comments:

  1. Question: where does Yoshi buy its gas?

    john

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  2. Oddly enough, New Jersey has a law against self-serve gas pumps (or used to). I always embarrassed myself whenever I rented a car there and tried to pump my own gas.

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    Replies
    1. Oregon has a similar law that applies to all but sparsely populated counties.

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    2. Both NJ & Oregon ban self serve gas, although I believe some changes are coming soon.

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  3. Back when gas was under a dollar a gallon, I was the kinda guy who'd drive 5 miles out of his way to save 4 cents a gallon. It never made any sense, really, but it was like a hobby! ; ) For some reason, rational economics not being one of them, once prices got to be the way they are now, I just gave up. I know where the best prices are, thanks to GasBuddy, and usually frequent those spots, but I used to be more annoyed by paying a penny more than I needed to then than I am paying 15 cents a gallon more now, if it comes to it. Fascinating, I know. ; )

    A fine, open-minded report, NS. As soon as I saw the topic, I had a knee-jerk "What bullshit!" reaction to the enterprise. But the customer makes some good points. I'm not going to be signing up, by any means, but I never order food delivered, either, while plenty of folks do. This doesn't really seem all that much different than that, I suppose.

    "charging the average per gallon rate AAA is reporting that day" National, state, county, city, or neighborhood average, I wonder? They'd all be different.

    Nice tie-in to Yoshi's restaurant being right there. I thought of that, too.

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  4. I think these guys are on to something. I don't see a downside.

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  5. I remember that Google & a few other Silicon Valley companies offered this as a perk for their employees cars in their work parking lots.

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  6. It's a guy thing on sporty cars. They get such hard-ons from a big engine. ;)

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