The Pantry

The Pantry, Inc. (NASDAQ: PTRY) was a publicly traded convenience store chain based in Cary, North Carolina that operates Kangaroo Express stores. The Pantry was founded in 1967 by Sam Wornom and Truby Proctor, Jr. The company has been publicly traded since June 1999 and owned by investors since 1987, when then investor Montrose Capital purchased controlling shares from Wornom and Proctor. Recent CEOs have included the former Chairman of the Board and interim CEO Edwin J. Holman, who took over after Terrance M. Marks, the former President and CEO, resigned in December 2011. (Marks had replaced the longtime former CEO Peter Sodini who had held office since 1996 until retiring in September 2009.) Dennis Hatchell is the current CEO of the company as of 2012.

The Pantry was one of the United States' largest convenience store chains and the leading independently operated chain in the southeastern U.S. As of September 29, 2014, the company operated 1,518 stores in thirteen states under several banners, including its primary operating banner Kangaroo Express. States include Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.

The Pantry (restaurant)

The Pantry is a Canadian restaurant chain based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The first expansion outside the Lower Mainland began with Vancouver Island and continued with the development of the Okanagan market and into Northern B.C. The Pantry Restaurants are now located throughout B.C., with various locations in Alberta, and further expansions underway in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

History

In 1975, Mike and Violet Hoffman opened the first Pantry Family Restaurant in Abbotsford. It was a built on a concept to provide friendly and attentive customer service, quality food, in a warm friendly atmosphere at affordable prices. The restaurant proved to be an instant success. The Pantry gained in popularity and reoriented itself to a "Casual Dining Restaurant", this concept change included revisions to signage, exterior image, the interior decor, marketing with new trademarks, logos, uniforms, tag lines and menus. The first expansion of The Pantry outside the Lower Mainland began with Vancouver Island and continued with Okanagan and Northern British Columbia. In the 1990s, a new catering, banquet and room service program to facilitate the hotels The Pantry was associated with.

The Pantry 300

The Pantry 300 was a NASCAR Busch Series stock car race held at Hickory Motor Speedway, in Hickory, North Carolina. One of the inaugural events of the series from its 1982 season, it was one of five races at the track in 1982, four in 1983 to 1985, three in 1986 and, from 1987 to 1994, was the series' second annual visit to the track, following which only the spring Sundrop 400 remained on the schedule until Hickory Motor Speedway departed the series schedule after the 1998 season. From 1982-87, the second race was the Bobby Isaac Memorial race, which was an established Late Model race at Hickory; that race switched to weekly NASCAR classification in 1988 and remains to this day. The race distance was 200 laps (72.6 miles (116.8 km)) from 1982 to 1990, 276 laps (100.2 miles (161.3 km)) in 1991, and 300 laps (108.9 miles (175.3 km)) from 1992 to 1994. The race served as the series' season-ending event in 1992.Jack Ingram and Tommy Houston were the only multiple winners of the event, each winning twice; the final The Pantry 300 was won by Dennis Setzer, who in doing so became the first rookie in series history to win twice in his rookie season.