From pumping gas to pouring coffee: Augusta 7Brew to replace old full-service gas station

The site of Augusta’s last full-service filling station will sell fuel again – but the fuel will be coffee. 

The Smith’s Chevron gas station and garage at the corner of Wheeler Road and Walton Way Extension closed in May. A 7Brew drive-thru coffee kiosk is now planned for the site, according to recently disclosed construction plans. 

March 18 is the projected opening date, according to Google data that already lists a new 7Brew at 3600 Walton Way Ext. Franchises such as 7Brew often open physical locations faster than other food franchises because the buildings are prefabricated and assembled onsite. 

Civil plans drawn up in mid-December by Augusta’s Southern Partners Inc. call for demolishing the 2,600-square-foot service station that sits on a lot measuring two-thirds of an acre. A 510-square-foot drive-thru kiosk will be erected on the spot.  

It’s been a gas: Smith’s Chevron full-service filling station closing after 37 years

Franchise owners are Isaac Mincks and Troy Jordan, partners in Coffee Talk LLC. The men already have opened two Augusta 7Brews, at 105 Charlestowne Way and 4218 Peach Orchard Rd. 

“We are opening stands from Augusta, Ga., to Columbia, S.C.,” according to a splash page soliciting applicants online for Augusta 7Brew jobs. “We will build six to seven stands per year for the next several years and we need your help to reach our goal of 40-plus stands!” 

Former Smith’s Chevron proprietor Tommy Smith couldn’t be immediately reached Tuesday.

Smith was working in the 1980s as an area sales rep for an automobile distributor when he drove past the boarded-up Jackson Road Shell station at Wheeler and Walton Way Extension. Remembering his enjoyable days working at a full-service gas station in his native Athens, Smith opened his Chevron station on the corner in September 1986. 

The 1970s energy crisis helped sharply reduce the number of full-service gas stations, giving way to self-serve pumps, but outliers like Smith’s Chevron stayed in business and are extant but uncommon today.