I’m not going to lie. I want to see it, and the two girls I’m with certainly do, too. So we jump into my car and make the trek to Henderson’s newest attraction. The Kwik-E-Mart.
Taken right out the wild world of The Simpsons as an ingenious marketing tool for the July 27 movie, the mini-mart is one of 11 7-Elevens in the U.S. that’s been converted to resemble the iconic Kwik-E-Mart.
But as we approach the store at around midnight on a Friday, the usually dormant hub of quick snacks and cold beer is a flurry of activity. Dozens of teenagers-to-fortysomethings gather around the Squishee machines, while a handful of hip stoners with their I’m still cool mom gather around the nightly shipment of addictive pink, sprinkled doughnuts.
“Dude, they smell so good,” says one stoner after he perforates the doughnut plastic wrap with his finger to get a whiff. The store clerks shoo them away and slowly begin to open the doughnut crates up for the customers. But it’s too late—now everyone wants a morsel of fried dough, and the store erupts into pandemonium.
As the line for the doughnuts begins to stretch across the store, two haggard women stumble through the store, seemingly unaware of the situation. They eye the crowd and bolt in unison for the door.
“Jesus, all I wanted to get was a pack of f--king smokes,” says one of the women angrily. “We should have just gone to Rite-Aid instead.”
Photographs by Iris Dumuk