New Cumberland Farms store to open Friday

RAVENA — The new Cumberland Farms store on Route 9W in Ravena is slated to open its doors to the public Friday, Sept. 14.

The store is directly across the street from the much smaller current Cumberland Farms store, which will relocate to the new store.

The new facility is considerably larger and more modern.

“As part of Cumberland Farms’ extensive efforts to enhance customer experience and compete with fast-casual restaurants, the new 4,794 square foot store will feature the brand’s latest innovative design, equipment and food offerings,” according to a statement from the company.

The new store has an interior high-top bar counter and three outdoor patio seating areas so customers can sit and enjoy a meal. There are 27 parking spaces for customers and four fueling stations.

In addition to the new design of the store, the food menu has been expanded, and will feature several specialty items like ciabatta sandwiches, frittatas, melts, and macaroni and cheese, as well as beverages like smoothies, frozen espresso, milkshakes and specialty coffee drinks like lattes, cappuccino and espresso.

The store is scheduled to officially open its doors to the public Friday, Sept. 14, and will have a formal ribbon cutting a few weeks later.

It is on the site of a former Crossroads Ford dealership.

In March of this year, Cumberland Farms razed the building that once housed the car dealership in preparation for construction of the convenience store. The building had been largely vacant for several years.

“In 2007 there was a fire that burned the showroom,” said Ron Teator back in March when the building was demolished.

Teator is the former owner of the Route 9W site and current owner of the car dealership, which relocated down the road a few years ago.

“We did service work here for a few years, and sold cars for two years out of a trailer. We moved everything up the road at the end of 2009. At that point, it was used for storage,” Teator said at the time.

Teator sold the property to Cumberland Farms, which is relocating from across the street. The new building is considerably larger and more modern than the current Cumberland Farms store.

Cumberland Farms owns 600 stores, and has converted 300 of them so far to the newer, more modern design model, dubbed a “new concept store” on the company’s website.

The company was started as a dairy operation in Cumberland, Rhode Island, in 1939, by Vasilios and Aphrodite Haseotes “with nothing but a cow and a dream,” according to the company website.

The first Cumberland Farms store was opened in Bellingham, Massachusetts, in 1957, and expanded into a line of convenience stores in 1962.