Exactly. I often wonder who the main customers of these small forecourt grocer's shops are. Most people wanting fuel just come in, fill up and pay, maybe picking up a bag of crisps or a bar of chocolate as they go. Only occasionally, I think, does the fuel purchaser do a small grocery shop at the same time. I suspect that these wee shops, being open such long hours, double as grocery corner shops for people in the relatively close vicinity. However it works, it's obviously a viable business model.
They have another function. If you're driving after dark and need fuel, it's really reassuring to pull up somewhere where there isn't just light and shelter, but an actual human being. If it's late enough perhaps the shop is closed but there is a single employee manning a kiosk to take the payment. This works almost as well. (Particularly when that employee has kept a box of creme eggs on the kiosk counter so that peckish drivers can get a sugar rush while they're there.)
So one way or another, it's a viable model even though the vast majority of customers simply grab the fuel, pay and go. It's viable enough to keep the shop open quite long hours even though "pay at pump" is an increasingly common option for drivers who don't want to go into the shop. They could close the shop and make the entire forecourt automated, but they generally don't. (Asda at Straiton is entirely automated, and I have always avoided it in favour of the nearby Sainsbury's simply because it's impersonal and unfriendly.)
Operating an EV charging station along the same lines should be more attractive, not less. Most drivers will choose to leave the car charging for long enough to come inside, use the toilets and if there's a cup of coffee available they'll probably jump at it. I think they'd sell more to the drivers and their passengers than the petrol forecourt, and they'd still be able to fulfil the corner-shop role too.
And especially from the perspective of the lone female driver, stopping somewhere like that has enormous attractions compared to stopping in a dark, windswept, rain-battered wasteland with no human presence to reassure, and no toilet facilites, warm dry waiting space or refreshments. Many people, I think, would pay a small premium for the electricity for this facility - just as I would go to Sainsbury's rather than Asda even though the petrol price was maybe 1p per litre more.
