Stacy’s Pita Chips began at a Boston sandwich cart. LEGO’s U.S. headquarters sits on Boylston Street. And the company behind the Roomba has its headquarters in Bedford. The list of famous brands with Massachusetts ties reaches from the snack cupboard to the shoes by the door.
Some started here. Others moved offices here long after they had become familiar names. The distinction matters: a Boston office does not mean every product was invented or manufactured in Boston. These ten companies have real connections to the city and the surrounding Massachusetts towns, with several stories better than the usual corporate founding speech.
Famous brands with Massachusetts ties
Stacy’s Pita Chips
Stacy Madison started Stacy’s D’Lites in 1996, selling sandwiches made with pita bread. The brand traces its beginnings to a cart in downtown Boston, where customers waiting in line received pita bites. The extra snack became the business people now recognize. That is a considerably more satisfying origin story than a product conceived in a meeting about expanding the snack category. Stacy’s own history still starts with that cart.
Dunkin’
William Rosenberg opened the first Dunkin’ Donuts in Quincy in 1950, selling coffee for ten cents a cup. A Massachusetts connection is hardly a revelation here, but the specific city deserves its credit. Quincy supplied the beginning of a chain that would put coffee and doughnuts into daily routines far beyond the South Shore. Our Dunkin’ history follows the growth from that first shop.
New Balance
New Balance began in Boston in 1906 and remains closely associated with the city. Its manufacturing story needs a little precision, though. The company says its Made in USA footwear contains at least 70% domestic value, and that the line accounts for a limited portion of U.S. sales. A New Balance label alone does not mean a shoe was made here. Read more about New Balance’s Boston connection.
Converse
Converse has its world headquarters at Lovejoy Wharf near North Station, overlooking the Charles. Nike, its parent company, dates the opening of the Boston headquarters to 2015. The location puts a sneaker company beside a part of the city more usually associated with trains, hockey and the walk to the North End. It is an office address with a very different setting from a suburban business park.
Saucony
Saucony began in Pennsylvania in 1898, taking its name and logo inspiration from Saucony Creek in Kutztown. Its Boston connection includes product work: parent company Wolverine Worldwide opened a facility at 90 Causeway Street in 2024 for design and development staff, including Saucony team members. Wolverine’s current locations page distinguishes that Boston office from its corporate headquarters in Rockford, Michigan.
Reebok
Reebok’s move from a suburban campus to Boston’s Seaport produced another large footwear workplace in the city. Gensler, the architecture firm behind the project, describes a five-story, 220,000-square-foot headquarters built around the existing industrial structure. The office project offers a concrete example of Boston’s footwear business: people designing and developing products here, well beyond the stores selling the finished shoes.
Ken’s Foods
Ken’s dressing came out of Ken’s Steak House, but Frank and Louise Crowley made it a separate business in 1958, starting in their kitchen. The company’s first headquarters and production facility were in Framingham before it moved to Marlborough. Ken’s Foods’ history follows a restaurant dressing into a much larger sauce business. The name on the bottle has a local restaurant behind it.
Welch’s
Welch’s lists its corporate offices at 1601 Trapelo Road in Waltham. The familiar juice and fruit-spread brand belongs on a Massachusetts list, though Waltham is a separate city from Boston. Its current corporate address is the useful detail here, especially if you remember older references to the company in Concord.
iRobot
The Roomba maker is based in Bedford and introduced its first Roomba in 2002. Its ownership changed in January 2026, when Picea acquired the company through a court-supervised restructuring. In its announcement, iRobot said it would retain the Bedford headquarters and U.S. engineering and product-development operations. A local headquarters and foreign ownership can both be true; the acquisition does not erase the Massachusetts connection.
LEGO
The Danish company opened its new U.S. headquarters at 1001 Boylston Street in May 2025. The Back Bay office occupies space at Lyrik, following decades in Enfield, Connecticut. LEGO planned the workplace for more than 800 colleagues. Boston did not invent the bricks, but it now has an office full of people working on where they go next.
