This Popular Brand Is Slowly Leaving Minnesota

It's been around in Minnesota for many years, but this popular brand is slowly leaving the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

It's always interesting to see how businesses come and go not just here in Minnesota but across the country. Corporate acquisitions are nothing new, of course, and when a new company takes over an existing brand sometimes they don't change anything.

Or, in this case, they DO change things up-- but it takes a while for those changes to take effect. But that's what's happening now to an iconic Minnesota brand name which is slowly starting to fade away here in the North Star State.

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If you've been through parts of southern Minnesota lately, perhaps you've noticed that you don't see many Holiday Stationstores anymore. That's because that familiar brand of convenience stores is slowly going away, city by city.

Those gas stations and convenience stores, with their familiar red, white, and blue logo, have been around in Minnesota a LONG time. In fact, their existence dates back to 1939, this MRP story said, when the very first location opened in Lindstrom.

A Holiday store in Rochester, MN earlier this week. (Curt St John/Townsquare Media-Rochester, MN)

Now, the stores aren't going away, mind you, but the name is. The latest Minnesota city to be affected is Rochester, which just this week had its eight different Holiday Stationstores rebranded as Circle K.

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It's the result of the brand being acquired by the Canadian company, Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc., the parent company of Circle K convenience stores. This Convenience Store News (CS News) story says they acquired the Bloomington-based line of Holiday Stationstores back in 2017, and are slowly rebranding them across Minnesota.

A former Rochester, MN Holiday Station Store being rebranded as Circle K. (Curt St John/Townsquare Media-Rochester)

CS News also notes there were once 522 Holiday Stationstores throughout 9 other states in addition to Minnesota, including Wisconsin, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Michigan and Alaska.

The same Circle K rebranding has already happened to Holiday Stationstores in other Minnesota cities, like Owatonna, MPR said. Those new stores are joining one of the biggest chains in the word, CS News said, noting that Alimentation Couche-Tard operates in 26 countries and territories, with over 14,100 stores.

For now, stores in the Twin Cities market are apparently still staying put as Holiday, though there was no word on when that might change as well. Eventually, the Holiday name will be completely gone from Minnesota, joining once-popular names like Daytons, TCF Bank and others. Keep scrolling to check out a massive list of other beloved brands that are also no longer around!