A goose mascot wearing Mardi Gras beads and leading a second line of elected officials through the foyer of the Mobile Chamber can only mean one thing: Wawa has landed in southwest Alabama, and lots of people are very happy about it.

Executives with the convenience store chain, an East Coast company that spread down into Florida over the last decade, announced back in April that they had set their sights on a major expansion campaign across the Florida Panhandle and into coastal Alabama. Friday morning, they held a press conference in Mobile to lay out some details of that plan and to reveal where Alabama’s first Wawas will be built. A second press conference was to follow early Friday afternoon in Spanish Fort, where the first Baldwin County locations were to be announced.

Related: Wawa is coming to Alabama. So what’s a Wawa?

So who gets Mobile’s first Wawas? The lucky folks out in west Mobile. Company officials revealed Friday that the first two Mobile stores will be built at the intersection of Cottage Hill and Sollie Roads, and the intersection of Schillinger Road and Old Government Street Road. (The latter site is near the Walmart supercenter on Schillinger south of Airport Boulevard.)

And when will they open? The first should be in business within a year from now, company representatives said.

When it comes to expansion, Wawa doesn’t play: Robert Yates, senior director for store operations in Florida and new markets, said the company decided to enter Florida about 10 years ago. Now it has 250 stores there, employing more than 10,000 associates.

The scheme for the Mobile-Panhandle region is a little more modest: 40 stores over the next eight to 10 years. In the Mobile area, the two confirmed sites soon will be followed by three to four that are now under consideration, Yates said.

The impacts add up: Company officials said Wawa will invest about $6.5 million per store, with about 140 contractors employed on each site. Each store will employ around 35 associates, with salaries starting at $15 per hour. Multiply that by the 40 stores planned for the region and it adds up to an investment of around $260 million and 1,400 new jobs.

Like Buc-ee’s, Wawa has legions of zealously enthusiastic fans, though the two companies’ business plans are considerably different. Where Buc-ee’s store are megasites beckoning interstate travelers with scores of gas pumps, Wawa doesn’t prioritize highway locations. Its stores are built on the scale of many other gas and convenience chains. But it has built its reputation by standing out in several categories, including cleanliness, the quality of its fresh foods and groceries, and the appeal of its hoagie sandwiches, ordered through a sophisticated touchscreen system that lets customers order exactly what they want. Other deli foods include a breakfast menu that also has some hard-core fans.

“Hoagie” might not be a term that comes naturally to Alabama residents, said Director of Store Operations Steve Hasher, but “we’re here to sink the sub, that’s for damn sure.”

Wawa was founded as a dairy market in a small Pennsylvania town of that name in 1964 and now has 1,000 stores in six states, employing 45,000 associates, Hasher said.

Other aspects of its operation that set it apart are an employee-ownership plan, under which associates own about 40% of the company; and philanthropy that includes an emphasis on fighting hunger. In Mobile, the company has opted to partner with USA Health Children’s and Women’s Hospital and with the Coast Guard foundation.

Chamber President and CEO Bradley Byrne said Wawa’s decision to come into the region was “the ultimate affirmation” that the Mobile area has a promising economic outlook. Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson told company representatives that “you can count on us to deliver” needed support.

Information about jobs can be found at https://www.wawa.com/careers. The company site also presents extensive information about site selection.