[6] After having gained experience from working for his father,[5] by the time Fred graduated from law school at the University of Kentucky in the spring of 1969, he expanded the operation to a chain of six locations in the metro Lexington area.

After that time, Fred began acquiring single convenience stores and select sites on which to build new locations across Kentucky.

[8] Many locations included Godfather's Pizza and O'Deli's, the latter of which was Minit Mart's in-house sub sandwich shop for much of the chain's existence in Kentucky.

Other select locations also previously served Baskin-Robbins ice cream and had Taco Bell Express restaurants, thereby grossing $250 million each year, and employing exactly 1,200 people.

In 2015, four years before his death, Fred Higgins sold the Minit Mart convenience store chain to TravelCenters of America for $67 million.

[1] In late March 2016 TCA closed on the purchase of Quality State Oil's QMart Marketplace 17-store chain of convenience stores based in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, which were immediately converted into Minit Mart locations.

The acquisition was done mainly to acquire the technology and patents for QSO's convenience store industry award-winning RFID keychain card-based loyalty program.

[6][17] As a result of this acquisition, only two of Minit Mart's historical legacy locations (in Auburn and Cadiz) remain unchanged, albeit with new ownership by local investors as of February 2024.

Minit Mart's other competitors included several locally owned convenience stores around southern Kentucky, some of which offer pizza and/or fried chicken, as well as some Speedway locations.

Phillips 66-branded stores under the name "Traveler's Food Plaza" in areas around Glasgow, Edmonton, and Tompkinsville, Kentucky also competed with Minit Mart for quite some time.

In March 2014, Minit Mart raised almost $43,000 USD from employees and their customers for the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) during their annual shamrock fundraising campaign around Saint Patrick's Day.