Kum & Go reveals it is changing 71-year-old name that became infamous innuendo
The infamous gas station chain Kum & Go will be rebranded with a much less funny name after being bought out by its conservative rival.
The Midwest icon, created long before the name came to mean anything else, was acquired last year by Salt Lake City-based Maverik.
Maverik began renaming stores in Idaho, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming – where both chains competed – and now confirmed that the same would happen for all 400 stores.
The company said it was “in the process of rebranding Kum & Go stores, with the intent to unify our entire combined footprint under the Maverik brand.”
Infamous gas station chain Kum & Go is being rebranded with a much less funny name after being bought out by its conservative rival
The Midwest icon, created long before the name came to mean anything else, was acquired last year by Salt Lake City-based Maverik
“While we are committed to this vision, we are taking a thoughtful market-by-market approach to ensure the best customer experience before confirming each state’s rebrand.”
The name change was expected to happen by the middle of next year, as loyalty card holders were told this would happen by mid-2025.
Kum & Go started as Hampton Oil in 1959 and adopted the soon-to-be extinct name in the 1960s.
Kum stood for Bill Krause, who founded the company with his father-in-law Tony Gentle, whose name the Go contributed.
“I chose the name with the fewest letters so the characters would be cheaper,” Krause told the Des Monies Register in 1993.
As the decades passed and the name became ambiguous, Krause not only didn’t mind that, but leaned into it.
“I can be angry and offended, or I can look at the fact that 100,000 people a day come through the doors of Kum & Go,” he said.
The chain sold merchandise bearing the name, most notably worn by Johnny Knoxville in Jackass 2 (pictured) in 2006, and worked with veteran presidents and LGBTQ groups.
Kum stood for Bill Krause (left), who founded the company with his father-in-law Tony Gentle (right), whose name the Go contributed. To save costs, the name was chosen with as few letters as possible
The chain sold merchandise bearing the name, most notably worn by Johnny Knoxville in Jackass 2 in 2006, and partnered with veterans’ charities and LGBTQ groups.
After gay online streamer Justin Moore made fun of the name, the chain collaborated with him on a clothing line ‘Kum & Gay Rights’ and ‘Have a Kum & Gay Day’.
The social media pages were full of quirky memes created by Nadia Trimnell, who built a huge following with only two rules: no politics and no college football.
But after Krause died in 2013, the chain was on borrowed time.
Third-generation owner Kyle Krause needed money for his dream of building a $500 million real estate project that included a football stadium — his real passion — and sold Kum & Go to Maverik last August for about $2 billion.
After gay online streamer Justin Moore made fun of the name, the chain collaborated with him on a clothing line ‘Kum & Gay Rights’ and ‘Have a Kum & Gay Day’.
Suddenly, all of Trimnell’s memes were deleted from social media pages – even a tweet saying ‘protect trans children’. Period.’ which was posted just before the sale.
‘It’s really disappointing, to be honest. We created something so strong, so fun and cool, especially in the Midwest. “I’m quite shocked that they would just take it all down and not pay tribute to it,” she told the newspaper Register.
A report from a trade magazine CSP daily news quoted ex-Maverik employees, explaining that conservative executives didn’t really appreciate the joke.
“I think there was some concern about the unintentional ambiguity of the Kum & Go name,” one person said.
Late Show host Stephen Colbert joked that they should have changed the name to “Kum & Then Maybe Stay Overnight” instead.