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Breeze Thru Markets are located in North Carolina, bring chain’s store count to 125

By Rachel Gignac on Jun. 23, 2025

Clinton, North Carolina-based Sampson-Bladen Oil Co. Inc., which operates Han-Dee Hugo’s stores, has acquired 15 Breeze Thru Markets convenience stores from Cary, North Carolina-based Cary Oil Co.

With the purchase of the Breeze Thru stores, Sampson-Bladen Oil Co.’s store count has increased to 125 stores in North Carolina, Matrix Capital Markets Group announced Monday.

Sampson-Bladen Oil Co. Inc., which operates Han-Dee Hugo’s, is No. 63 on CSP’s 2025 Top 202 ranking of U.S. convenience-store chains by store count.
Cary will continue to operate its extensive wholesale fuels distribution business that supplies approximately 1,000 dealers across more than 20 states and delivers almost 1 billion gallons of fuel annually.

“The Stephenson family has built a very well-known and successful family business, and we are honored that they now trust our family to carry on this one small part of their legacy,” said John Litton Clark, Sampson-Bladen Oil Co. president.

  • Sampson-Bladen Oil Co. was founded in 1936 and now, as a fourth-generation, family-owned enterprise, has expanded into convenience-store operations, quick-service restaurants, car washes, a wholesale fuel division and a lubricants division.

Matrix Capital Markets Group provided merger and acquisition advisory services to Cary. The price of the deal was not disclosed.

Cary Oil Co. was founded in 1959 by Harry Stephenson, operating a single tank wagon delivering home heating oil throughout the town of Cary, North Carolina. Over the next several decades, Cary began offering branded motor fuels and further expanded its geographic reach across the southeastern United States. As its wholesale distribution network continued to extend into the southwest and parts of the midwestern U.S., Cary also began operating convenience stores in its home state of North Carolina, branding these locations with its proprietary Breeze Thru Markets imaging. The Breeze Thru network consisted of 15 stores, selling bp-, 76- and Amoco-branded fuels.