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Posted: 31 Jan 2006 21:15
by tesg
danielh_512 wrote:Iowa as many of the Plains states are a mystery to me as to what chains operate there. It's usually smaller chains (ones we know nothing of out here in the Mid-Atlantic)....but Iowa, Des Moines specifically, Dahl's, Hy-Vee and Wal-Mart?
Daniel, I wrote an answer to your question, but it's posted over in the "HISTORY: Regions and Cities" folder as I felt it had gotten completely off topic here, and was appropriate enough to start a thread there.

Posted: 01 Feb 2006 13:53
by rrr
Dave, thanks for the cub info.

Posted: 07 Feb 2006 00:14
by verywell
HT's #1 store still stands/operates on Central Ave in Charlotte.

Posted: 07 Feb 2006 00:31
by Groceteria
verywell wrote:HT's #1 store still stands/operates on Central Ave in Charlotte.
Actually, the very FIRST Harris store was two blocks west of the current store. It was a mid-block former A&P that became a Harris store in 1936. W.T. Harris had previously been an A&P store manager, although I'm not sure if this had been the store he'd managed. It is, however, still standing, and is now an antique store.

The current Central Avenue store opened around 1950, when the older store moved up the street as a brand new supermarket.

As an aside, the first store to bear the actual Harris Teeter (post-merger) name was in Kannapolis, and opened about 1959 or 1960.

Photo of Harris (later Harris Teeter) store #1:

Image

Posted: 24 Feb 2006 22:15
by Dave
Groceteria wrote:The original Food Lion #1 was torn down several years ago. It was in the shopping center that used to be a few hundred feet from I-85 off US 52 in Salisbury NC.
Is the store you're referring to in the picture accompanying this article?

http://www.salisburypost.com/area/283609698904367.php

I find it somewhat amusing that this store later became a Winn-Dixie.

Posted: 25 Feb 2006 00:17
by danielh_512
That's interesting.

And to think we'd have never known Food Lion.

Posted: 25 Feb 2006 21:39
by Groceteria
Dave wrote:Is the store you're referring to in the picture accompanying this article?
Different store. The one in the article was a Ketner's store, which was a separate chain started by the same family. The entire Ketner's chain was sold to Winn-Dixie, and Food Town/Food Lion was started a few years later.

I believe Winn-Dixie even threatened litigation over the new Food Town store due to a non-compete clause in the sales contract for Ketner's.

Posted: 26 Feb 2006 10:04
by rich
Non-compete cluses were common in the 50s/60s, but never held up in court. The Pick-n-Pay chain in Cleveland tried unsuccessfully to block Allied Supermarkets from opening K-Mart Foods stores on their turf because of a non-compete clause in Pick-n-Pay's acquisition of Allied's Foodtown chain (unrelated to the Carolina or even the Toldeo Foodtown).

Posted: 16 Oct 2006 06:24
by TheStranger
Here's a question I've always had: Was there even a "Safeway location #1" due to the fact the chain was formed out of a mid-1920s merger? Maybe "first Skaggs store" might be more appropriate, and for the DC division, "first Sanitary."

Not sure where those would be located, myself...

Posted: 12 Feb 2007 17:10
by socalgrocer
Don't know if it's still standing yet:

Ralphs #1: 2675 Foothill Blvd, La Crescenta
210 Freeway exit Gould Ave, just before the Glendale Freeway junction

As far as I know, it was/is operating as Ralphs Fresh Fare.

socalgrocer

Posted: 12 Feb 2007 20:58
by Groceteria
socalgrocer wrote:Don't know if it's still standing yet:

Ralphs #1: 2675 Foothill Blvd, La Crescenta
The topic as stated is the first store a given chain ever operated, not whatever store is labelled as "number one" oin the current numbering scheme. Unless this store is over 100 years old, it's clearly not the first Ralphs ever. That was at the corner of Sixth and Spring in downtown LA, and I'm told it's no longer standing.

1st store still open

Posted: 31 Oct 2007 13:54
by scanman2
Superior Super Warehouse in southern CA has their first store still open but there is a twist to the story. The original store #1 is in Covina on Arrow & Citrus. It was opened in March 1981, Superior lost the lease and had union problems and closed the store in Dec. 1983. In 1994 they opened the store in Watts and reissued the number to this store as store #1. In 2002 (I can't remember for sure the date) they sub leased the old store #1 from Unified Western Grocers (wholesaler for the independents in southern CA) and it was reborn as store #15.

Posted: 31 Oct 2007 22:32
by Jeff
The current Superior on Arrow/Citrus was a Lucky/Sav-on that closed around the time the Albertsons merger went through.

The original building was torn down with part of the old shopping center for the new store.

Superior in Covina

Posted: 01 Nov 2007 14:54
by scanman2
The Superior in Covina is under a sub lease from
UWG (Unified Western Grocers) who is leasing it
from Supervalu, who bought out Albertsons, who
bought out Lucky. The store was a Super Saver
which was Lucky's attempt at a warehouse store
prior to Superior going back the 2nd time to that
site. They did have successful Super Saver in
South Gate on Firestone Blvd. but it was closed
during the Albertsons merger.

Posted: 02 Nov 2007 00:40
by bigbubby
TheStranger wrote:Here's a question I've always had: Was there even a "Safeway location #1" due to the fact the chain was formed out of a mid-1920s merger? Maybe "first Skaggs store" might be more appropriate, and for the DC division, "first Sanitary."

Not sure where those would be located, myself...

The name "Safeway" actually came from the Sam Seelig chain in Los Angeles, which changed its name to Safeway in I believe 1925. The earliest
ad for Sam Seelig in the LA Times was in 1914, listing one location on South Figueroa Street in what would today be South Central (or South LA, as they're calling it now). That is most likely the "first Safeway".