A Bowling Green liquor store chain that had been family-run since the early 1970s has switched hands.

United Package Liquors, an Indiana-based company, recently acquired Chuck’s Liquor Outlets, which includes four stores in Bowling Green.

Founder Chuck Evans, who died in January, began negotiations to sell the chain more than a year ago, according to a news release. A broker contacted the Indiana company in December about a possible purchase, said Brian Rider, president and CEO of United Package Liquors.

“The most attractive thing about Chuck’s was how Mr. Evans and the owner of United Package Liquors were so much alike. I think they were cut from the same mold,” Rider said. “They’re both generous people who owned liquor stores for 40-plus years and very family oriented.”

The Indiana company opened in 1964, making it the oldest liquor package company in Indiana. It operates 24 stores in Indiana, and Chuck’s Liquor Outlet stores are the company’s first and only stores in Kentucky.

Chuck’s Liquor store locations include Veterans Memorial Lane, Louisville Road, Scottsville Road and Three Springs Road. The store name and staffing will remain the same, and no immediate changes are planned. In the future, the company might move the smallest store, which operates off Scottsville Road behind Steak ‘n’ Shake, into a bigger space.

That store sits in about 3,000 square feet of space in a complex next to Bowling Green Athletic Club. The former owners were considering moving that store before United Package Liquors took over, and it will be one or two years before company officials decide whether to make that move, Rider said.

“I’m not the kind of person that tries to fix things that are not broken,” Rider said. “Mr. Evans did everything right, and I’m not planning to change a thing.”

The Indiana company officially took control of Chuck’s on April 30. The stores employ about 37 people. United Package Liquors has about 190 employees, a number that has spiked over the past few years. In 2002, the company operated 13 stores – it now has 28 locations. And company officials plan to expand and “grow the Chuck’s name,” Rider said.

“We’re very proud of the acquisition and very happy with the Evans family,” he said. “We could not have imagined a better company to buy.”