Take a Really Big Gulp

7-11 Inc. (Dallas) celebrated its 75th anniversary over the July 4 holiday weekend.

In 1927, an employee of Southland Ice Co. in Dallas started selling milk, eggs and bread from the ice dock as a convenience for his customers. By 1946, that had grown into a retail chain operation that took the name 7-Eleven to reflect the (7 a.m. to 11 p.m.) hours of operation.

It has since become a 24-hour operation with more than 23,000 stores around the world. The retailer that has sold nearly 2 billion hot dogs and about 6 billion Slurpees reports it serves 25 million customers a day. It says it serves the most Slurpees in Detroit, the most hot dogs in Washington, D.C., the most coffee on Long Island, the most nachos in Colorado and the most Big Gulps in Las Vegas and Utah.