DUBLIN, Ohio (WCMH) -- A convenience store and gas station is opening on Wednesday on the site previously home to a Max and Erma's restaurant that was bulldozed.
Sheetz has taken over the former restaurant's property at 7480 Sawmill Road in Dublin and hosted a grand opening celebration Wednesday morning. The new location is also welcoming customers by offering free self-serve coffee and soda for the entire day.
To celebrate, Sheetz donated 2,500 to the Mid-Ohio Food Collective, the largest food bank in Ohio. Customers who attended the grand opening were encouraged to donate a non-perishable food item. The chain also made a $2,500 donation to the Special Olympics of Ohio.
Max and Erma's owner, Glacier Restaurant Group, closed the Sawmill Road location and another Dublin restaurant at 411 Metro Place North in 2020. A series of other closings have decreased the concept to just one local restaurant at 2703 Memorial Drive in Lancaster. Only two other Max and Erma's remain in Ohio, one inside a Dayton airport and another in Middleburg Heights.
The new Dublin Sheetz adds to the chain's more than 750 convenience stores and gas stations across Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio and Maryland. Sheetz announced its expansion into central Ohio in 2019, opening the first location in Delaware in 2021. Since then, the chain has ballooned to more than 25 Columbus-area locations.
The Sawmill Road restaurant added to the Rolodex of Max and Erma's locations in central Ohio bulldozed for a Sheetz. 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.
The gas station also purchased the site of Woody’s Wing House at 161 E. Campus View Boulevard for $3,750,000 last year, Franklin County auditor's office records show. Rezoned last fall to house a gas station, the two-acre site was also home to a former Champps restaurant and began operating as a Woody’s location in 2018.
Max and Erma's locations are not the only central Ohio restaurants making way for new quick-service development, including the demolition of several eateries for new Chick-fil-A locations. Mackenzie River closed earlier this year and auctioned off its furniture in March before the building was demolished to make room for the new Polaris Chick-fil-A.
Worthington's Buca di Beppo is set to be demolished after the site was purchased by the fast food chain in April, auditor's office records show. While the restaurant remains open with a shuttering date yet to be announced, the location's closing will dwindle Buca di Beppo to three Ohio eateries: one in downtown Columbus, another in Strongsville and a third near Cincinnati.
