Kum & Gone

It’s a sad day for frequent road-trippers to Denver. The endearingly risqué gas station/convenience store chain Kum & Go is changing its name.

If you need to take a moment to cry into your Kum & Go koozie or sweatshirt, it’s OK.

Apparently, the Kum & Go chain, which has some 400 stores throughout Iowa, Arkansas, Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Wyoming and Michigan, was bought out by mega chain Maverick last year. The Utah-based Maverik (is anyone surprised?) recently announced plans to rename all Kum & Go stores by 2025, including the 86 in Colorado.

According to a source from Maverik, “There was some concern about the inadvertent double entendre of the Kum & Go name.”

Maverick reportedly paid $2 billion for the Kum & Go chain, which nearly doubles the number of stores in the Maverik chain to 801.

The Iowa-based Kum & Go was established in 1959 by William A. Krause and Tony S. Gentle. In 1975, they changed the name of the gas station chain to Kum and Go, reportedly as a nod to the founders’ last initials.

And while the new stores will likely just become more boring Maveriks, late night talk show host Stephen Colbert wasted no time in offering some “less dirty” ideas for names.

“Kum & Go should change its name to ‘Kum & Then Maybe Stay the Night,’” Colbert suggested on his Jan. 18 show. “And the next morning you get breakfast and you find the conversation comes easily, not like with all the others, and you realize how much you have in common.

“You both put peanut butter on your pancakes and you both think George was the best Beatle and before you know it, it’s Christmas 2062, and you’re surrounded by children and grandchildren thinking, ‘Man, I’m so lucky to have all this love in my life,’” he said. “‘I’m glad all those years ago I didn’t just Kum & Go.’”

Admittedly, that is a lot to fit on a sign, he noted.

In the meantime, if they do go with the Maverik name, may we suggest a new tagline: “We’ve got your tail.”