For Jay Patel, last Wednesday morning started like any other, until a text from a regular customer jolted him awake with the kind of news every convenience-store lottery seller dreams of.

“I just wake up and I see the text from the customer in the morning,” he said. “I don’t know if I was fully awake yet.”

By the time he arrived at the Mattituck shop — 10 or 15 minutes earlier than usual, he said — the store’s lottery terminal was flashing a message confirming that someone who bought a ticket there had hit a $3 million Mega Millions prize.

Jay stood staring at the screen. “I see the sign — ‘$3 million’ — I was really shocked,” he recalled. “At first I think, ‘That’s a glitch in the system.’”

It wasn’t. Moments later, he called his cousin, store owner Nik Patel, who was equally stunned. Whatever disbelief remained disappeared when the New York Lottery district representative called with official confirmation. NOFO Beer and Smoke Shop had just sold its biggest winning ticket yet.

Since opening in 2019, the shop has been known among local lottery die-hards as a place with unusually good luck. Its walls are lined with signs noting past payouts.

“Yeah, we’ve had Mega winners before,” Nik Patel said. “Two hundred ten, $1,000, $5,000, $2,500.”

Over the years, a small legion of committed players has formed around the store. “There are people who always come and they only play Mega and Powerball,” Nik said. “We see their face every time.”

Both men said they’re itching to know who picked the second-prize combination — 10, 13, 40, 42 and 46, missing only the Mega Ball: 1. Customers have been flooding back in since the win, some eager to test their luck at what they are now calling a lucky store, others asking the only question on everyone’s mind: Do you know who won?

The answer is no. And since New York allows winners to claim prizes through limited-liability corporations, the Patels may never know.

“I spoke to my lottery guy,” Nik said. “He doesn’t know either. Nobody has cashed the ticket yet. Unless the customer comes in and tells us, ‘Hey, that was me — I won,’ we might never know.”

Though stores don’t receive a share of the prize, oftentimes grateful winners tip the retailer who sold the ticket.

The win is also a moment of pride for the extended Indian-American Patel family, whose stores now dot the North Fork and western Suffolk. NOFO Beer & Smokes is Nik’s first shop, but convenience retail runs in the family. Their uncle owns several East End stores, in Jamesport, Riverhead and Westhampton.

Lottery tickets sell steadily, Nik said, but beer remains their biggest draw. Even so, the lottery counter is the heartbeat of the shop — and since news of the $3 million winner broke, new customers have been pouring in to try their luck.

“Right after winning that $3 million ticket, now everyone’s coming in with new faces,” Nik said. “They’re thinking it’s a lucky place.”