Smoker Friendly Acquires Tobacco Road Outlet Stores

BOULDER, Colo. — The Smoker Friendly brand is coming to additional stores in North Carolina.

The Cigarette Store Corp. (TCSC) dba Smoker Friendly acquired 22 Tobacco Road Outlet (TRO) stores in North Carolina. The company plans to rebrand the TRO locations as Smoker Friendly and introduce the Smoker Friendly brand of tobacco products into the stores immediately.

"These stores provide a great opportunity to expand our corporate store footprint with our existing company stores in the mountain states and Florida," said TCSC/Smoker Friendly President Terry Gallagher Jr. "We are very excited about bringing these stores and their great team into our portfolio."

Smoker Friendly said it will retain the TRO employees at the 22 locations as the TRO chain's owners prepare to leave the tobacco retailing business.

"Rex and Andy Whitaker and their team did a great job building the company and operating tobacco stores in North Carolina and we are proud the Whitakers looked to Smoker Friendly as the acquirer when they were ready to exit the business," Gallagher added.

The acquisition is one step in Smoker Friendly's strategy to grow its footprint in the North Carolina retail tobacco market.

The transaction follows Smoker Friendly's deal for the 33-store Smoker's Outlet chain in Missouri this past November, as Convenience Store News previously reported.

Boulder-based TCSC is the largest licensee of Smoker Friendly International and operate 157 retail tobacco outlets with a mix of tobacco stores, cigar lounges, liquor stores and gas stations under the Smoker Friendly, Tobacco Depot, paylesscigarsandpipes.com and Gasamat banners in eight states.