External links
- LeRoy Melcher obituary
- LeRoy Melcher obituary
- NY Times story on purchase by Circle K
- Black and White Photo of a UtoteM Store
 | This United States retail business article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
| Industry | Convenience store |
|---|---|
| Defunct | 1984 |
Key people | LeRoy Melcher |
UtoteM, also spelled U-tote-M or U Totem, was a chain of convenience stores which operated until 1984, primarily in the southwestern United States and Florida.
The chain experienced most of its growth under the leadership of LeRoy Melcher (1912-1999), who acquired the chain in 1950 and became its president in 1953. Melcher expanded UtoteM from ten stores to more than one thousand across thirteen states. UtoteM merged with Fairmont Foods in the late 1960s. In 1983, the Circle K Corporation bought all of the stock of Utotem Inc. for 225 million dollars from American Financial Corporation, and in 1984 rebranded the stores as Circle K stores.
Herb Ralston was an early partner. Ralston made history when he designed, built and opened the first convenience store in the United States that also offered gas. The store was located in Webster, Texas on NASA Road 1.
| | This United States retail business article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
A convenience store, convenience shop, corner store or corner shop is a small retail business that stocks a range of everyday items such as: coffee, groceries, snack foods, confectionery, soft drinks, tobacco products, lottery tickets, over-the-counter drugs, toiletries, newspapers and magazines. In some jurisdictions, convenience stores are licensed to sell alcoholic drinks, although many such jurisdictions limit such beverages to those with relatively low alcohol content such as beer and wine. Such stores may also offer money order and wire transfer services, along with the use of a fax machine or photocopier for a small per-copy cost. Some also offer to sell tickets or recharge a smart card, like the OPUS card in Montreal. They differ from general stores and village shops in that they are not in a rural location and are used as a convenient supplement to larger stores.
7-Eleven, Inc. is an American chain of convenience stores, headquartered in Dallas in the U.S. state of Texas. The chain was founded in 1927 as an ice house storefront in Dallas. It was named Tote'm Stores between 1928 and 1946. After 70% of the company was acquired by Japanese affiliate Ito-Yokado in 1991, it was reorganized as a wholly owned subsidiary of Seven-Eleven Japan Co., Ltd. in 2005, and is now held by Chiyoda, Tokyo-based Seven-Eleven Japan.
Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc., or simply Couche-Tard, is a Canadian multinational operator of convenience stores. The company has 15,000 stores across Canada, the United States, Mexico, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Japan, China, and Indonesia. The company operates its corporate stores mainly under the Couche-Tard, Circle K and On the Run brands, but also under the affiliated brands 7-jours, Dairy Mart, Daisy Mart and Winks.
Circle K Stores, Inc. is an international chain of convenience stores, owned by the Canadian multinational Alimentation Couche-Tard. Founded in 1951 in El Paso, Texas, the company filed for bankruptcy protection in 1990 and went through several owners, before being acquired by Alimentation Couche-Tard in 2003. As of February 2020, Circle K has 9,799 stores in North America, 2,697 stores in Europe, and an additional 2,380 stores operating under franchise agreements worldwide. Arizona’s Grand Canyon region is the largest for the company
Speedway is an American convenience store and gas station chain headquartered in Enon, Ohio, with locations primarily in the Midwest and the East Coast regions of the United States wholly owned and operated by 7-Eleven. Speedway stations are located in 32 states, up significantly from its core seven-state region in the Midwest since 2012. Prior to 2021 the company was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Marathon Petroleum Corporation and is the largest convenience store chain in central Ohio.
Casey's Retail Company is a chain of convenience stores in the Midwestern and Southern United States. The company is headquartered in Ankeny, Iowa, a suburb of Des Moines. As of April 30, 2019, Casey's had 2,146 stores in 16 states. Following 7-Eleven's purchase of Speedway, Casey's is the 3rd largest convenience store chain in the United States and the largest that is wholly American-owned.
Lawson, Inc. is a convenience store franchise chain in Japan. The store originated in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, but exists today as a Japanese company.
The FamilyMart Company, Ltd. is a Japanese convenience store franchise chain. FamilyMart is Japan's second largest convenience store chain, behind 7-Eleven. There are now 24,574 stores worldwide in Japan, Taiwan, China, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Its headquarters is on the 17th floor of the Sunshine 60 building in Ikebukuro, Toshima, Tokyo. There are some stores in Japan with the name Circle K Sunkus under the operation of FamilyMart.
APlus is an American convenience store chain owned and operated by 7-Eleven, which is licensing the name from the energy company Energy Transfer Partners.
Kum & Go is a convenience store chain primarily located in the Midwestern United States. The company, based in Des Moines, Iowa, operates 400 stores in 11 states—primarily in its home state of Iowa. Other states include: Arkansas, Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Wyoming. Kum & Go was ranked as the 24th-largest convenience store chain in the United States by Convenience Store News in 2019.
Karl Eller was an American businessman and entrepreneur.
On the Run is a flagship convenience store brand developed by ExxonMobil, used at Exxon and Mobil stations in the United States, BP and Mobil in Australia and at Esso and Mobil stations internationally. Alimentation Couche-Tard acquired the On the Run trademark and franchise network in the U.S. in 2009, and Parkland Fuel did the same in Canada in 2016; ExxonMobil retains full ownership of the brand in the rest of the world.
The Pantry, Inc. was a publicly traded convenience store chain based in Cary, North Carolina that operated Kangaroo Express stores. The Pantry was founded in 1967 by Sam Wornom and Truby Proctor, Jr. in Sanford, North Carolina The company has been publicly traded since June 1999 and owned by investors since 1987, when then investor Montrose Capital purchased controlling shares from Wornom and Proctor. Recent CEOs have included the former chairman of the board and interim CEO Edwin J. Holman, who took over after Terrance M. Marks, the former president and CEO, resigned in December 2011. Dennis Hatchell is the current CEO of the company as of 2012.
VPS Convenience Store Group was an American convenience store chain headquartered in Wilmington, North Carolina that could trace its roots to the founding of the first Village Pantry convenience store in 1966. VPS was sold in two parts in 2013 and 2015 to GPM Investments.
Stripes Stores is a chain of 700+ convenience stores in Texas, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. These locations are former Circle K and Town & Country Food Stores. Other convenience store brands they operate under include IceBox and Quick Stuff. It is one of the largest non-refining operators of convenience stores in the United States.
Henry D. Sahakian was the founder of Uni-Mart, which quickly became one of the largest convenience store and gasoline station chains in the United States. A Christian Armenian from Iran who moved to the United States in 1956, he studied mechanical engineering at Pennsylvania State University. There, he founded Unico, a builder of student housing projects.
Allsup's, sometimes misspelled as Allsups, is a privately owned chain of convenience stores with over 300 locations, mostly in New Mexico and West Texas, with one store in Frederick, Oklahoma. It is a 24-hour chain selling fuel under the Shell, Alon, ConocoPhillips, Exxon and "Allsup's On the Go" brands. It also sells traditional convenience store items and prepared food items, and is particularly famous for their burritos. The company's main competitors are Circle K, 7-Eleven, Stripes and Pik Quick.
CST Brands, Inc. was an American publicly traded fuel and convenience retailer. It was the second-largest of its kind in North America, with 1,900 outlets in the U.S. and Canada. CST Brands had 2013 revenues of about $12.8 billion and made approximately $360 million in EBITDA. Stores were concentrated in the central and southwestern U.S. states and in eastern Canada. Corner Store was the firm's primary retail brand in the US and in Canada's English speaking provinces. In Canada's French speaking provinces, Dépanneur du Coin is the company's retail brand. In addition to convenience store retail sales, CST Brands also sold fuel under a number of licensed energy brands such as Valero, Exxon, Shell, and Phillips 66.
National Convenience Stores Incorporated is a convenience store company headquartered in Houston, Texas. Its primary subsidiary, Stop-N-Go Foods Inc., is/was the company controlling the convenience stores.