When you talk Philadelphia news cycle these days, Tyler Gyursin is right up there with Joe Biden and John Dougherty, even though you probably don’t know his name.
Gyursin is the young man from the Jersey Shore who collected every Wawa order slip from 000 to 999 and shared the feat on social media. He’s since shown up everywhere from the Inquirer to 6ABC to X (once known as Twitter) and TikTok and radio.
In the past 3 years, Gyursin estimates he’s been to Wawa three or four thousand times. Most of his meals come from Wawa. He makes about three or four visits a day. The collection that skyrocketed him to the world’s consciousness took over three years to complete, and the final 10 slips took about eight months to collect.
You’ve likely already heard about this on most news outlets, so instead of giving you another summary of this superfan’s unbelievable achievement, Billy Penn sent a reporter to meet Gyursin in person and dive deep into the mind of a Wawa superfan.
What are your top 3 Wawa items?
- Mac and Cheese
- Garlic Knots
- Pepperoni Bagel Melt
How do you feel about Wawa’s rival, Sheetz?
“I got food poisoning from Sheetz once, haven’t been back since.”
However, Gyursin is a fan of popular Texas-based convenience store, Buc-ee’s:
“I have a Buc-ee’s-themed bathroom in my house, with all kinds of Buc-ee’s merch. Not trying to cheat on Wawa or anything, but Buc-ee’s is pretty cool.”
Do you have a favorite Wawa store, not including your hometown Wawa?
“Probably the retro Wawa.”
Gyursin has a picture of the ‘50s-themed Wawa in Wildwood as his phone’s lock screen. It’s also where this interview took place (see photo above).
How many different interviews have you done for this?
“I have done probably about a dozen different interviews now with all kinds of different newspapers, news corporations, I’ve done radio shows … and it hasn’t even been 48 hours [since posting his viral tweet].”
There’s a bunch of comments on Twitter calling you crazy. Does that bother you?
“No, I think it’s hilarious. Yeah, it’s stupid. Yeah, you’re right. But it’s for the bit, it’s funny, and now 4 million of you have seen it.”
Why? What was the goal of the collection?
“For fun, literally just for fun, no reason at all. For the bit.”
What did your parents think of your collection? What about your friends?
“My parents did not know about it until it went up on Fox News.” (He chuckled.)
As for Gyursin’s friends, they were very supportive. Many of them helped with his collection, giving him order slips he was missing.
Are you a student? Are you currently working?
“I do a bunch of side jobs like Uber, Doordash, Instacart.” Want to hire an obsessive superfan? You might be able to reach him via his LinkedIn.
What’s next for you?
“My next goal is to take a picture in front of every single Wawa. I’m dedicated, so in a couple years from now, you might see that tweet go up.”
Tyler already has about 100 photos in front of different Wawas. With over 1,000 Wawa locations that stretch all the way to Florida, and more on the way, he has many more to go.
