In Japan 7-Eleven stores are deeply woven into daily life, not just as a store but as a meeting place and community resource. Beyond snacks and drinks, Japanese 7-Elevens offer fresh meals, household items, bill payment services, and parcel shipping. Many are open 24 hours and serve as hubs for both rural and urban communities. The Japanese government has even classified convenience stores as part of the country’s critical infrastructure.

7-Eleven began in Texas in 1927, when icehouse companies, which primarily sold block ice for food preservation to households without electric refrigerators, merged to form the Southland Ice Company in Dallas. Southland Ice soon started general retailing at its icehouses and installed attention-getting Native American totem poles in front of some of its stores, called Tote’m Stores. The company renamed the stores 7-Eleven in 1946 to call attention to their extended hours of operation—from 7 AM to 11 PM, seven days a week.

In the late 1950s the company branched out beyond Texas, opening new stores on the East Coast. Starting in 1963, some outlets stayed open 24 hours a day, and the following year the company began to franchise its stores domestically. Southland licensed a Japanese affiliate in 1973 and the idea took off. In 2005, 7-Eleven itself became a wholly owned subsidiary of Tokyo-based Seven & I Holdings.