Good Oil turns 85 as third generation takes over and reworks its Good To Go stores

Good Oil, the Indiana fuel-and-convenience operator, hit 85 years in business in 2026, and the third generation of the founding family is now running it. The new leadership is rebuilding the Good To Go brand around foodservice and store technology, with plans to add locations.

That should get the attention of any independent facing its own succession question. Plenty of family jobbers reach this stage and sell to a consolidator. Good Oil is keeping it in the family and putting money back into the stores.

The handoff

Don Good Sr. and his wife Mary started the company in Monterey, Ind., in 1941, selling petroleum to local farms and homes. Their sons Don Jr. and Dean built out the convenience-store side and opened the first c-store in 1971 in Winamac, where the headquarters still sits today. That original store, the company says, "was more of a traditional model."

Eighty-five years is a long run for a single-family fuel business. The ones that last tend to be the ones that keep reinvesting in the store instead of coasting on fuel volume, and the bet on food and technology reads that way here.

Foodservice is where the margin is for a c-store operator right now. Fuel pays the rent and gets people onto the lot. The kitchen is what earns. Good Oil naming food first in its modernization plan signals where it expects the next decade of money to come from.

Forecourt safety

A woman was accused of dousing someone with fuel at a gas pump, per WCNC. Details are thin, and the report is a police matter more than a business one.

For an operator it is still a reminder that the forecourt is a public space you are liable for. A working camera and emergency fuel shutoffs are the difference between an incident and a lawsuit, and clerks need to know what to do when a pump gets misused.

What to watch

Whether Good Oil actually expands its footprint or just refreshes what it already has. Talk of adding locations is cheap. Site acquisition in a tight market is not, and independents are competing with well-capitalized chains for every good corner. Watch the Good To Go food program for specifics, because a "focus on food" only counts once there is a real menu and a kitchen build-out behind it.