The stores around here have pretty mundane names: Stewart’s, Cumberland Farms, Mobil Mart. The closest thing to a cute name is Shop 'n Go.
“High’s” (I believe the full name was “High’s Dairy”) used to be everywhere in the Baltimore/DMV area, and they still exist but are a much, much smaller chain than they were.
AKA “Ejaculate and Evacuate.”
Ah Wa Wa. I recall, over 70 years ago (it was during the war) driving out Baltimore Pike to what must have been the flagship store in Wa Wa PA to get ice cream (and cool off).
Around here, the cleverest name is ProviSoir, which is a portmanteau meaning provisions in the evening, but also a pun since provisoire means provisional.
Around the Greater Toronto Area, the major convenience-store chains were Mac’s and Becker’s. Both were swallowed by the mighty Alimentation Couche-Tard from Québec, whose stores in Québec are branded Couche-Tard (which I think means something like “sleep late” or “last minute”). AC-T also now owns Circle K, and is now rebranding all its Ontario stores as Circle K. While visiting my sister and brother-in-law, I just saw a new Circle K location in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario; I remember that years ago Circle K made a foray into Ontario, but that must have been before AC-T got involved, because they weren’t around for long…
Around here, most of the C-stores don’t have clever names. There’s Parker’s, a chain named for the owners; Enmark, which is rebranding to Enmarket for no reason I can figure; El Cheapo; Flash Food; and Time Saver. I call all convenience stores Time Saver, 'cause that’s what all of them were when I was a kid.
I guess the clever one used to be a Parker’s location. When it was purchased by someone else, they rebranded by moving the “s” from the end to the beginning: sParker. Has worked fine for several years now, and the couple who operate it are extremely nice.
Not many clever names around here, either.
We have a chain of car washes called “Brown Bear”, characterized by statues of bears out front. Some of these car washes also have c-stores attached which are called “Hungry Bear Markets”.
That’s about it in the clever department.
Some BP gas stations in Ohio have a Duchess Shoppe convenience store. That franchisee’s gas stations used to be branded as Duke stations.
We had Convenient Food Mart as well in Western NY. Did yours originally used to be called Convenient Food Mart as well, or maybe it was another chain?
Grew up with Short Stop. I don’t think any of the chain survives.
There was a chain called Quik Stop, which decided it might be better to brand its gas Quik Start.
I’d never seen a Cumberland Farms til we moved here. There is something weird about them - too big and shiny and Brady Architecture to be a convenience store and gas stop.
I’ve lost count of the indy places that are named like every small labor company: using the owner’s initials. Fortunately most owners seem to be named Ali, Aga or Ahmed, so it puts them at the top of the listings…
We had a chain called Stop N Go when I was growing up. Also, Dairy Mart (Lawson (store) - Wikipedia) and United Dairy Farmers (http://www.udfinc.com).
It’s Hogly Wogly in Tallahassee and yes they are still open.
Homerun is big around here as is Flash. I remember the Stop 'n Shop in my home town. It was the first convenience store. This was and is a small town, so the local paper printed everything that happened. There would always be a lot of “so and so arrested for shoplifting at Stop 'n Shop” in the police report. So all us kids called it the Stop 'n Steal.