About Us

A Brief History And Perspective Of Southwest Montana’s Premier Convenience Store Chain 

One of the largest Montana owned and operated convenience store chains in the state had its humble beginnings as a Phillips 66 distributorship in Butte, Montana.

Louis Sutey, father of long-time Thriftway Super Stops president David Sutey and father-in-law of current president Linda Sutey, began operations with a partner as Woodhull and Sutey in 1945.

The business continued to operate solely as a Phillips 66 distributorship until the early 80’s. By this time, David Sutey had been the president and chief operating officer of Sutey Oil Company for many years. In 1981 Sutey Oil purchased the service station of one of our best customers, Thriftway Service at 1420 Park Street in Anaconda. Sutey Oil kept the Thriftway title and added Super Stops to the name. In 1983, Phillips 66 left Montana and we expanded our business with the purchase of four 66 stations that we converted to Conoco branded convenience stores.

This began a series of convenience store purchases and construction that has continued to this day. During the late 80’s and early 90’s Thriftway expanded to seven stores, five in Butte and two in Anaconda. In 1994 the company purchased our first store outside the Butte/Anaconda area when we bought the Conoco store at Four Corners. In 1997 we built a new store with a car wash on Euclid Avenue in Helena and the following year built a totally new store at the Four Corners location.

In 1999 the company purchased the Conoco distributorship and convenience stores of Rutledge Distributing of Bozeman. This added two stores in Bozeman and one each in Belgrade and Manhattan. In 2003, the company purchased the former Norman’s Corner Conoco store from the Norman family in Three Forks.

Currently, Sutey Oil operates fifteen Thriftway Super Stops in southwest Montana, runs three large fuel transport delivery trucks, and two smaller fuel delivery trucks from our Butte, Bozeman, and Three Forks locations.

The convenience store industry, with over 70,000 stores and 70 billion dollars in sales, is an exciting and viable industry in this country. The work experience and retail training you will receive presents you with the chance to expand your personal growth so that you may take advantage of retailing opportunities down the road. The company has a policy of promoting qualified individuals from within, when possible.