Meet Alex Canter of Maggie’s Refuel Inc.

Today we’d like to introduce you to Alex Canter.

Hi Alex, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I grew up as the 4th generation of Canter’s, the 95-year-old deli on Fairfax that’s been an LA institution since 1931. After years adapting the restaurant for a new generation of customers, I saw that restaurants weren’t set up to handle delivery through apps like Uber Eats, Grubhub, and DoorDash. That’s why I started Ordermark in 2017, my first software startup, to help restaurants move online. We raised over $150M in 3.5 years, scaled to 10,000+ restaurants, and sold the company to SBE Hospitality in 2023.

Time on the road showed me how great convenience store culture is around the world, and how badly American gas stations were missing exciting food, drinks, and real hospitality. So I set out to build the first nice gas station: Maggie’s, opening our first location in Beverly Hills in 2027. We’re curating our favorite treats, beverages, and more under one roof, with a real coffee, soft-serve, and a specialty pastry program.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Nothing about entrepreneurship is smooth, but it sure is thrilling, and what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Building a fast growing startup requires a combination of delusional determination, lots of hard work, ups, downs, twists, turns, and of course a little luck and good timing. I’ve had to deal with nasty lawsuits, funding rounds falling apart at the last second, founder breakups, layoffs, aggressive investors, key employees getting poached, tough board meetings, and lifting people up when spirits are down. And I absolutely LOVE the challenge. Going from 0 to 1 is particularly my favorite stage, because you get to dream something into reality that never existed, and there’s no better feeling than watching it unfold.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Maggie’s is on a mission to build a better refueling experience, pairing fuel with the best treats in the neighborhood: premium coffee, matcha, and soft serve, backed by a curated lineup of food, drinks, and finds, all in spaces designed to make a routine stop something worth looking forward to. Inspired by the convenience-store culture of Japan’s 7-Eleven and Italy’s Autogrill, we want to give people a reason to get excited when their gas light comes on. We’ll be opening our first location in 2027 at one of the most iconic gas stations in America: the Union 76 in Beverly Hills, a midcentury-modern landmark known for its dramatic, spaceship-like canopy. Guests will be able to expect everything from their favorite convenience-store classics to locally baked pastries, international specialties, and emerging brands worth discovering.

What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
Convenience stores have been stuck. Consumers want the exciting, better-for-you products you’d find at a great coffee shop or grocery store, and most of that hasn’t made it to convenience store shelves, mostly because of supply chain and distribution limits nobody’s bothered to solve. At Maggie’s, we’re intentional about every single SKU we’ll be carrying.

Separately: gas cars will be on the road for a long time, but there’s real downward pressure building as higher-MPG and EV vehicles take over. EVs are only about 2% of cars on American roads today, but that number is climbing. We think Maggie’s is well-positioned for that shift, since the experience we’re building is made for a longer dwell-time customer. Not every site will support EV charging, but we’re adding it wherever we can.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://maggiesrefuel.com
• Instagram: @deliboyswag or @maggies
• LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/alex-canter-la