Summer and 7-Eleven® stores’ frozen Slurpee® drinks is as all-American as, well, baseball and hot dogs … the Fourth of July and cookouts … amusement parks and big box-office movies. And free Slurpee drinks? That’s a tradition that Americans have come to love as well.

Once again, 7-Eleven is celebrating its birthday on 7-Eleven Day, Wednesday, July 11, and participating stores in Charlotte will give away free 7.11-ounce Slurpee drinks between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. This will be the first time the convenience retailer has celebrated 7-Eleven Day in North Carolina since the mid-80s.

“7-Eleven Day gets bigger and more popular every year,” said Doug Doyle, N.C. native and the new market manager for 7-Eleven’s operation in the greater Charlotte area. “On July 11, we’ll celebrate our 85th year as the retail leader of convenience, the 45th birthday of the iconic Slurpee, and best of all, our first big welcome party for our new Charlotte guests at stores throughout the area.”

7-Eleven acquired 55 Sam’s Mart stores in the Charlotte area earlier this year and has been converting the stores during for the past five months. To date, 45 of the stores have been fully branded, and the remaining 10 will be rebuilt and operating as 7-Eleven stores late this year and in 2013.

For 7-Eleven fans who want to show their true Slurpee colors and celebrate in style, the company has created diminutive, downloadable birthday attire – tiny bowties, hair bows and two sizes of party hats … tiny and tinier. The petite party-wear can be found at http://www.7-eleven.com or www.slurpee.com/Rewards.

“This is a tasty way to get Slurpee lovers to sample our refreshing summer flavors, especially our new sugar-free Slurpee Lite™,” said Laura Gordon, 7-Eleven vice president of brand innovation. “And, we plan to keep the fun rolling on all summer long. For example, during July, we offer the new flavors of Fanta Sugar-Free Strawberry Banana and a delicious Fanta Lemon Crème along with our regular Slurpee flavors.”

7-Eleven’s Big Summer Sweeps campaign is another reason customers will want to stop by their local 7-Eleven store. During the summer months, peel-play-and-win game pieces can be redeemed for prizes ranging from a free bag of 7-Select™ chips to a motorcycle. The summer-long, storewide, peel-and-win contest will award more than $2 million prizes with 50 million game pieces to win free in-store products; Six Flags®, movie and sporting events tickets; touchscreen computer tablets and GPS devices, party charcoal grills, 24-can coolers, free movie rental codes and gift certificates.

Grand prizes include a motorbike, a trip to the football championship in New Orleans and a Coca-Cola VIP race weekend.

Big Summer Sweeps game pieces can be found on medium Slurpee and Super Big Gulp® cups as well as Big Bite® and fresh sandwich packaging. Each peel-off entry offers a chance to win an instant in-store prize and has a game code that can be entered online to instantly win one of thousands of other prizes. Each code is automatically entered into the sweepstakes for one of the three grand prizes (motorcycle, football trip, racing package). More prize information is available at http://www.7-eleven.com/BigSummer.

7-Eleven has celebrated its birthday on July 11 for decades, but it wasn’t until its 75th birthday in 2002 that its stores began hosting coast-to-coast birthday parties with free Slurpee drinks for its customers.

“We kicked off the summer with SlurpFREE Day and the new Slurpee Lite right before Memorial Day, we continue the party on 7-Eleven Day, and the Big Summer Sweeps keeps the fun going all summer long,” Gordon said.

July 11 marks the day that the world’s No. 1 convenience retailer celebrates its many milestones. 7-Eleven, the world’s first convenience store, began its run in the summer of 1927 when a Southland Ice Company employee started selling bread, milk and eggs on an ice dock in a Dallas suburb. Since that inauspicious start, “convenience” has become big business. The small ice company has grown into a major international retailing chain with 9,300 7-Eleven stores in North America and more than 46,800 stores worldwide.