Alimentation Couche-Tard, the parent company of Circle K convenience stores, has begun rebranding 44 of the Big Red Stores c-stores in Arkansas it acquired in February, according to a Tuesday announcement.
The rebranding will go through April 23 and may require some store closures while work is completed, Couche-Tard said. The former Big Red locations have been incorporated into Circle K’s Gulf Coast business unit — based in Pensacola, Florida — which oversees locations across Alabama, Arkansas, the Florida Panhandle, Louisiana and Mississippi.
Formerly owned by retail firm Summerwood Partners, Big Red Stores’ entire footprint is in Arkansas, with most of its stores located in the Little Rock region. Many Big Red locations are large-format sites and co-located with a variety of QSR brands, such as McDonald’s, Baskin Robbins, Burger King, Dairy Queen and Hardee’s.
Couche-Tard’s acquisition, which closed on April 17, included all 45 Big Red locations in Arkansas. All but one of the stores sat on land owned by Summerwood.
The move more than quadruples Couche-Tard’s current store count in Arkansas, a spokesperson said in a previous interview.
“We are very pleased to be expanding across Arkansas and welcoming Big Red’s great team members into our family as we raise the Circle K banner at these high-quality locations,” Trey Powell, vice president of operations, Gulf Coast business unit for Circle K, said in the announcement.
Laval, Quebec-based Couche-Tard operates more than 9,000 c-stores in North America — including over 7,000 in the U.S. — under the Circle K, Holiday Stationstores and Couche-Tard banners. It is the second-largest c-store company in the continent behind 7-Eleven.
