5 Cumberland Farms Habits That Give Away a Lifelong Bay Stater
A quick stop at Cumberland Farms can say a lot about where you grew up.
Bay Staters who’ve shopped at the same store for years may see themselves in a few of these.
Here are the little Cumberland Farms routines that give away a lifelong Bay Stater.
1. Grabbing a Half-Gallon of Milk
Picking up a half-gallon of milk at Cumberland Farms is a habit the company’s history backs up.
The company says its early stores relied heavily on gallon and half-gallon jugs of milk.
The first of those dairy stores opened in Bellingham, Massachusetts, in the 1950s.
The company now calls itself New England’s first true convenience store, which is its description and not an independent ranking.
If you grab a half-gallon with your gas, you’re buying what the company started with.
Where Cumberland Farms Started
Cumberland Farms began as a one-cow dairy farm in Cumberland, Rhode Island.
Boston 25 News reports that the founders started that farm with $84 and a single cow.
2. Reaching for Farmhouse Blend
According to the trade publication CSP Daily News in 2023, Cumberland Farms’ Farmhouse Blend is a mild coffee made from 100% Arabica beans.
You can take it iced, a version Cumberland Farms rolled out in April 2010.
A 2019 release from the company also lists a Bold coffee and complimentary French Vanilla and Hazelnut flavor shots.
You choose the flavor.
3. Buying a Scratch Ticket
Boston 25 News reported in March 2026 that a $25 million Massachusetts State Lottery scratch ticket was bought at a Cumberland Farms in Turners Falls.
The game was the $25,000,000 Mega Money instant ticket, which sells for $50.
The retailer received a $50,000 bonus for selling it.
If you tack a scratch ticket onto a Cumberland Farms coffee run, you’re doing what that winner did.
4. Paying With SmartPay
Cumberland Farms launched SmartPay in January 2013.
A 2015 company release says members automatically saved 10 cents on every gallon, every day.
Those savings applied across the Northeast and Florida.
By October 2015, the company had sold $1 billion in gas through SmartPay.
Today, SmartPay is the bank-linking option inside the SmartRewards program.
You earn 1 point for each gallon of fuel and 1 point for each dollar spent in the store.
You can join at one of three membership levels, called crew, insider and SmartPay Member.
Many regulars pay this way out of habit.
Psst! How Bay State are your convenience-store habits? Tick the habits that sound like you and see where you land.
5. Calling It Cumby’s
Cumberland Farms has a nickname, Cumby’s, and the Boston Globe printed it in a 2016 story about the company.
Many longtime customers shorten the name the same way.
That story covered the company’s headquarters move from Framingham to Westborough.
About 400 people worked at the Westborough office, compared with roughly 300 in Framingham.
Boston.com described the company as headquartered in Westborough in May 2026.
In 2019, the company had 200-plus convenience stores in Massachusetts.
If you say Cumby’s at the register, you’re using the name the Globe printed.
Free Chill Zone Day
Cumberland Farms first held Free Chill Zone Day in June 2010, according to CSNews.
By the sixth annual Free Chill Zone Day, customers got a free frozen Chill Zone beverage or fountain drink at more than 600 locations.
The giveaway left out 20-ounce bottled soda, Twisted Scoops and Chillzicles.
If you’ve ever planned an errand around a free drink, you already know how this works.
Self-Serve Pumps
In 1970, Cumberland Farms added the first self-serve gasoline pump to one of its convenience stores, according to the company.
By 1975, the company had 100 stores with gas facilities.
Both figures cover the whole company.
If you fill your tank yourself at Cumberland Farms, you’re using a setup it began offering in 1970.
The Coffee Milkshake
Cumberland Farms put Farmhouse Blend into a milkshake in May 2015, mixed with ice cream and milk.
The release says the drinks are freshly blended in f’real’s patented blenders.
The introductory price was $1.99 during May 2015.
It launched at remodeled stores across the Northeast and Florida.
Chocolate, cookies n’ cream and strawberry are among the blender’s other flavors.
If you wanted coffee in a milkshake, this was the one to order.
The Roxbury Concept Store
Cumberland Farms opened a concept store in Roxbury, in Boston, with a grand opening on November 19, 2013.
Patch reported that it was the brand’s first urban location to open in Boston since 1981.
The store had touch-screen ordering kiosks where you could customize a meal.
Food options included pizza, hot dogs and fried items.
During opening month, 10 cents from every purchase of coffee, brewed tea, fountain soda or Chill Zone drinks went to Boston Medical Center.
Eight States, One Name
Cumberland Farms says it has more than 575 stores in eight states.
Those states are Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, Maine, New York, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont.
Florida is the only state outside the Northeast.
If you spend winters in Florida, you’ll see the same name at the pump.
Cumberland Farms’ parent group runs 1,500 retail locations across the country.
The $99 Coffee Sign
Cumberland Farms made news in May 2026 when a sign in Massachusetts advertised coffee for $99, according to Boston.com.
The company said the ad came from artificial intelligence and wasn’t distributed by its corporate marketing team.
It was fake.
Commenters pointed to visible mistakes, including steaming iced coffee and a mint leaf among the coffee beans.
If you saw that price on a sign, you were looking at the image, not a menu.
One Reddit user joked that inflation was getting out of hand.
The company answered with a post joking that its coffee is good as gold.
7 Heating System Problems Bay Staters Find on the First Cold Night
The first cold night of fall tests a furnace that’s been off for months.
Some furnaces stay cold after a long summer off.
7 Heating System Problems Bay Staters Find on the First Cold Night
9 Tool-Borrowing Habits That End Bay Stater Friendships
Lending a neighbor a rake sounds harmless.
Sometimes the tool never comes home, and the friendship cools.
