Sheetz Opens New Arden Location on Airport Road With Grand Opening Festivities

Store manager Pat Murray had a clear message for the crowd gathered outside the new Sheetz at 59 Airport Road in Arden on Thursday morning: "We don't want to just be a corporation that comes in, says we are going to do great things, and ignores everyone and ruins the area. We want to come in and join the community and solidify ourselves as someone who really wants to be here and wants to be a part of everything that is Arden, that is Asheville, that is western North Carolina."

The Pennsylvania-based chain backed those words with $5,000 in charitable checks at the March 19 grand opening, presenting $2,500 to MANNA Food Bank and $2,500 to the Special Olympics of North Carolina. Sheetz also invited customers to bring a non-perishable food item to donate to MANNA between 9 and 11 a.m., with each donor receiving one item of "Sheetz Swag" while supplies lasted.

The new Arden store opened to the public at 8 a.m., with grand opening festivities kicking off outside at 9 a.m. and an official ribbon-cutting ceremony at 10:45 a.m. Free self-serve coffee and soda were available to all customers throughout the entire opening day. Attendees were also eligible for major giveaways including $250 in Sheetz gift cards and a "Free Sheetz for a Year" prize. Local nonprofit representatives and elected officials were among those invited to attend.

The Arden location sits in southern Buncombe County, in the area between Skyland and Fletcher near the Henderson County line. It joins a growing cluster of western North Carolina Sheetz stores that includes locations in Marion, Hendersonville, Morganton, and Boone. The Marion location had opened roughly a year before the Arden store.

Sheetz first entered North Carolina in April 2004 with a store in Walkertown and reached 100 locations in the state by 2019. The chain now operates more than 800 stores across seven states, with hundreds in North Carolina alone. USA TODAY's 10Best Readers' Choice awards named Sheetz the best regional fast food chain in 2020, and Fortune has listed the company among its 100 Best Companies to Work For for ten consecutive years.