A convenience store chain operating in the Florida panhandle and south Georgia. The logo was yellow and black, featuring an illustration of a swift.

In 1997, the chain was purchased in bankruptcy court by a partnership of Durham, North Carolina, businessman W. Clay Hamner and actor Wayne Rogers.

The new owners promptly changed the name of the stores to Swifty Mart, presumably because they were hoping to expand beyond the area through which the Suwanee River flows. They then bought another chain called E-Z Serve and came up with a new name for the combination: Swifty Serve.

And so, within a couple of years, a store with a name that suggested old men sitting on the front porch in rocking chairs with a hound dog at their feet had become just another glorified gas station with a name that brought to mind images of frozen yogurt, leaving White Hen Pantry as the convenience store chain with the most poetic name.

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.