MALTA — On April 24 Cumberland Farms opened its third “next generation” store in Saratoga County. There are roughly 60 Cumberland Farms in the Albany area and Capital Region. Cumberland Farms’ next generation stores are expanded and rebranded to offer more options to consumers. Located in Malta at 527 Route 67, the groundbreaking for this new location began in early November.
In around 2009 the gas station chain began to remodel locations in order to enhance customer experience and compete with fast-casual restaurants. These new concept stores are larger in size, roughly 5,000 square feet and offer an expanded menu list with items such as ciabatta sandwiches, Mac N’ Cheese Bites, and more beverage options like smoothies, frozen espresso and milkshakes.
The biggest improvement to next generation stores is the self- service electronic ordering terminals which are ordering stations where customers can manually place their orders on tablet-like screens and proceed to pay and pick up at the counter. This Cumberland Farms will have additional seating with a 12-foot dining counter as well as three outdoor patio tables.
“This year we have a decent
amount of stores that we’re looking to open up, not just in the Albany region but Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts and even down in Florida. Coming up, they think Malta is the last next generation store for a bit, maybe toward the fall there might be more in the works. Every year I think we’re looking to expand to different areas in the states we operate. So this year is pretty much what we’ve been doing the last three or four months with this type of project,” said Bryan Pierce, Senior Marketing Specialist at Cumberland Farms.
An official ribbon cutting and grand opening event will take place in the weeks to come where typically Cumberland Farms will partner with a local charity to create a fundraiser to coincide with the ribbon cutting.