The Daily Bulletin · No. 004 · 13 June 2026

Ten Convenience Stores of Lasting Historical Consequence

Ranked by their bearing on the record

Most convenience stores are convenient and nothing more. A small number have altered the historical record, generally without meaning to. The Collection ranks ten such establishments below, by consequence rather than by cleanliness.

1. No. 1 · The Standing Entry The Cumberland Farms on N. Main Street, Concord, New Hampshire. (Plan your visit.) Site of the Maple Milk Incident of November 9, 2001. The only convenience store known to the Collection to have had a museum founded on its behalf. It remains open and remains, as far as it is aware, an ordinary store.
2. The first store to install a roller grill, thereby inventing the 3 a.m. decision.No one has made a good one since.
3. A Wawa at which two people reached for the same hoagie and a marriage began.The hoagie was halved. The story was not.
4. A store whose slushie machine has never, on any occasion, worked when you needed it."Cleaning" is the sign. It is always the sign.
5. The bodega run, in every sense that matters, by its cat.The humans handle the register. The cat handles everything else.
6. A store at which a touchscreen asked one question too many."Would you like to round up?" No. It never ends there.
7. A store that exists primarily as a landmark in directions."Turn left at the one on the corner." Everyone knows the one.
8. The store that sold its last newspaper to its last newspaper reader.Neither knew it was the last. That is how it always goes.
9. A different Cumberland Farms, included solely to demonstrate that not all of them are consequential.This one sells gas and gum and nothing has ever happened there. The Collection respects it.
10. The convenience store in your hometown that is now a vape shop, then a different vape shop, then nothing.You still call it by the old name. Everyone does.

Bulletin No. 005 will rank ten forms of deferred payment by menace. The most menacing is small.