Bolla Market bets on upscale look as convenience store and gas station chain plans Long Island expansion

Bolla Market, the Garden-City based convenience store and gas station operator, is trying to carve out its own niche beyond gas and cigarettes. 

For nearly two decades, the chain has been expanding its presence in the metropolitan area by touting two key services: food courts and modern restrooms.

The markets draw repeat customers by offering takeout-only food from chain restaurants, also known as a "food court concept," in the larger-than-typical convenience stores, retail experts said.

It also distinguishes itself from other chains with its large, shiny restrooms with marble floors, said Harry Singh, who founded the Bolla Market brand in 2006 under his Bolla Oil Corp.

"We want to be more than a gas station. We want to be able to [have a] facility that can provide food service and a facility that can be [open] 24 hours a day," he said.

There are 210 company-owned Bolla Markets and about 90 franchises stretching from the Hamptons to northern New Jersey, Singh said. Of those, more than 100 opened in the past five years. 

On Long Island, there are 125 company-owned Bolla Markets selling fuel from Mobil, Exxon, Sunoco, Shell and other companies, Singh said.

There are 10 more under construction, including four on Long Island — in East Farmingdale, East Norwich, Hicksville and Deer Park — that will open by late December, he said. The Hicksville and Deer Park locations are existing auto repair shops with gas stations that are being expanded.

Bolla Market is among a growing number of gas station and convenience store operators that is creating a more upscale environment to expand their customer base and differentiate themselves from competitors, retail experts said. 

The chain is modernizing its stores to draw more affluent customers who would normally shop at Whole Foods or other high-end stores, said David Henkes, senior principal at Technomic, a Chicago-based restaurant industry research firm.

“The upscale Bolla Market prototype reflects upscale neighborhoods, with wood gondolas, granite, millwork and an upscale deli featuring a chef who creates gourmet Italian food for takeout,” he said.

Operators in the Northeast that are aiming for such an ambience include Nouria in New England, Flory’s in upstate Fishkill and Alltown Fresh in Connecticut, Massachusetts and other locations in New York, said Jeff Lenard, a spokesman for the National Association of Convenience Stores in Alexandria, Virginia.

Bolla's expansion strategy

In February, Bolla Market was the 53rd largest convenience store operator in the nation, according to the National Association of Convenience Stores. 

The chain is growing quickly but has far fewer locations than the largest operator, 7-Eleven, which had about 12,600 stores in February, according to the association.

Singh sees more opportunities for Bolla Market's growth, preferring sites between 1 and 2 acres on Long Island. 

“We are not necessarily looking to go out of New York. … We feel very comfortable that at least from now to the next 10 years, we will continue to open anywhere from 15 to 20 sites a year,” he said.

About 40 proposed Bolla Market sites are awaiting building approvals across the region, including nearly 20 on Long Island, he said.

We want to be more than a gas station.

— Harry Singh, founder of the Bolla Market brand

Bolla's "food court" includes takeout from chains such as Tim Hortons, Pizza Hut, Firehouse Subs, Moe’s Southwest Grill and Burger King, Singh said, adding all its stores have at least one restaurant on its premises.

“It helps bring repeat customers more often," Singh said. The average gas station customer visits about 1.3 times a week while a repeat customer visits about 2.7 times a week, he added.

Bolla Market serves as the franchisee for all the restaurants in order to maintain consistency in the food and services, Singh said.

“Bringing another franchisee into the building, it creates a mess," he said. "Nobody wants to take responsibility for cleaning, maintaining the property."

Founded in 1989, Singh's Bolla Oil Corp. is made up of five companies — Bolla Real Estate, Bolla Retail, Bolla Wholesale, Bolla Transport and Bolla Construction.

Bolla Oil operates gas stations, convenience stores, auto repair shops and car washes, and employs more than 2,000 people in the metro area, Singh said. Bolla Oil's companies generate "billions of dollars" annually, Singh said, declining to provide specific numbers. 

The size of Bolla Market allows it to buy wholesale fuel at better prices than many of its competitors, Singh said.

In the fuel sales industry in New York State, the high cost of doing business, including labor, insurance and taxes, makes it difficult for a gas station operator to own just one location, said Kevin Beyer, vice president of government affairs for the Long Island Gasoline Retailers Association, a nonprofit trade group based in Melville. That leads operators to open multiple locations and modernize their sites, he said.

Singh has made prudent growth moves for Bolla Market by acquiring old gas stations that were closed for various reasons, then upgrading and reopening the sites, said Beyer, adding that Bolla has become a fuel distributor that competes well with bigger companies.

Singh is “his own little oil company. … And, you know, it was a good business model that he did. And it works,” Beyer said. 

Convenience stores, tasty profits

Profit margins on fuel sales typically are slim for gas station operators, a reason the vast majority have some type of convenience store attached to them, said Lenard, of the National Association of Convenience Stores.

On Long Island, between 2014 and 2024, the number of gas stations with convenience stores increased 53% to 659, while the number of gas stations without convenience stores fell 44% to 181, according to the New York State Department of Labor. 

Nationwide, the retail fuel industry's gross margin, or markup, on gasoline in 2024 was 39.7 cents per gallon, or 11.9% of the average price of $3.33 for the year, Lenard said. Over the past four years, retailer gross margins have averaged 38 cents per gallon, or 11% of the overall price. 

But inside convenience stores, the average gross margin, before expenses, on items is about 30%, Lenard said.

"For prepared food, margins are even higher, 56%, but there also are most costs associated with prepared foods like waste and labor," he said.

At Bolla Market, about 60% to 70% of the company's revenue comes from its convenience stores, Singh said.

So, retailers like Bolla, which offer pizza, sandwiches, cheeseburgers and quesadillas, have even bigger profit margins and bring customers back, aiming to be one-stop shopping spots for gas, food, lottery tickets, batteries, aspirin, diapers and other items, experts said.

Between 2004 and 2024, the share of convenience stores’ sales coming from prepared foods grew from 11.9% to 27.7%, Lenard said.

Several customers at the Bolla Market in Wantagh on Thursday evening bought food from one of the takeout restaurants inside the convenience store.

“Bolla does a good job. … It’s very repeatable. It’s reliable,” said Bellmore resident Anthony Pisano, 44, after buying coffee and doughnut holes from Tim Hortons. He stops by the store for food more often than gas, he said.

Levittown resident Anita Wittner, who picked up a burrito at Moe’s, said she has started to come to the Bolla Market in Wantagh more often as she drives past it to her job as an art therapist.

“I like that it’s open. … I like the setup of this place specifically. The shelves are low, that there’s a lot of ... [gas] pumps outside,” said Wittner, 26.  

Nationwide, gas station and convenience store operations are growing in size to accommodate the increase in services inside, Lenard said.

In 2004, nationally, there was an average of 8.5 fueling spots at gas stations and the average new convenience store was 3,742 square feet in size, according to the association. Last year, there was an average of 9.8 fueling spots at gas stations and new convenience stores averaged 6,064 square feet of space. 

The growth is being helped by improvements in consumers’ perceptions of convenience store food and advancements in technology to make the food quickly, he said.

The food court concept at Bolla Market "is almost more like a travel stop, where there’s multiple options," Lenard said. "If a group of people is stopping to get gas, use the restroom and get food, by having multiple options, you’ve made it much easier for someone to find something they like, as opposed to going down the road to one format.”

Patrons also care about the condition of the restrooms, Lenard said.

More than one in four consumers say when they go inside a convenience store, they use the restrooms, he said.

"If you are in the bathroom and everything is clean and you open the door, you are much more likely to spend money, particularly on food,” Lenard said.

Building a business empire

Singh's foray into the retail industry began in the 1980s.

In 1983, he immigrated to the United States at age 22 from Punjab, India. His wife, Kamaljit, immigrated with her family in the 1970s.

He did “odds and ends jobs,” including driving cabs in New York City for two years, and later attended an Apex Technical School to learn how to repair cars, he said. 

In 1988, he said he bought a gas station with a repair shop in Manhattan on Houston Street, near New York University, where he learned the ins and outs of running a gas station. Singh said he closed that business around 1989 after a developer bought the property from his landlord.

A few months later, he bought another gas station franchise in Brooklyn. The work was tough, the days long and the breaks few, but it led to growth, said Singh, adding he started buying a gas station or two every year.

By 2006, when Singh had 45 gas stations and repair shops, which were mostly Mobil fuel franchises, he formed his own brand, Bolla Market, and began transitioning the locations to that name, he said.

Now, with nearly 300 Bolla Markets and franchises, Bolla is a family enterprise, Singh said, with his son, Jay Singh, serving as a vice president and his daughter, Tarnjit Kaur Bolla, as director of insurance compliance.

“When you fight for success, you become successful. If you dream of success, but you don’t work hard, then you, obviously, are not going to be successful,” he said.