KMart grocery stores before SuperKMart

[Jeff]

We need pics before the store closes!

[Dean]

We need pics before the store closes!

Indeed! I grew up shopping @ this location!

I believe the closing date is mid-January.

[luckysaver]

City of Industry's website (http://www.cityofindustry.org) has a historical photo section that includes a digital photo of the original page from the San Gabriel Valley Tribune with a picture of the ribbon cutting ceremony for the store's opening in 1963. According to the City of Industry, it was built as a Kmart entirely - no separate grocery store, since Kmart has a convenience food department (called Kmart Pantry in 1998).Other noted features of the store:

- The trees and the left side wall are still intact since 1963
- Purrfect Auto Service occupies the Auto Service area
- It has a huge parking area enough for the city to have community fair/events. The parking lot has never been full each time I passed by.
- Interior decor is from the recent "Big K" days
- No K-Cafe - has Little Caesar's Pizza Station instead.

You can go take pictures now before it closes. Also of notable interest, down the street on Hacienda at Gale is the former Smith's Food King (opened 1967)/Fabric King/Joann, now vacant and completely vandalized (it looks freaky). The 99 cents store across the street was Thriftimart/Lucky/Albertsons.

luckysaver

[Dean]

City of Industry's website (http://www.cityofindustry.org) has a historical photo section that includes a digital photo of the original page from the San Gabriel Valley Tribune with a picture of the ribbon cutting ceremony for the store's opening in 1963. According to the City of Industry, it was built as a Kmart entirely - no separate grocery store, since Kmart has a convenience food department (called Kmart Pantry in 1998).Other noted features of the store:

- The trees and the left side wall are still intact since 1963
- Purrfect Auto Service occupies the Auto Service area
- It has a huge parking area enough for the city to have community fair/events. The parking lot has never been full each time I passed by.
- Interior decor is from the recent "Big K" days
- No K-Cafe - has Little Caesar's Pizza Station instead.

You can go take pictures now before it closes. Also of notable interest, down the street on Hacienda at Gale is the former Smith's Food King (opened 1967)/Fabric King/Joann, now vacant and completely vandalized (it looks freaky). The 99 cents store across the street was Thriftimart/Lucky/Albertsons.

luckysaver

thanks for the City of Industry site suggestion. I found the pix from the paper on the site...said KMart opened 2/69.

Not sure where it says it was solely a KMart...and not a grocery store. Yet, I distinctly remember the grocery store, and the remodel when KMart expanded into the former grocery store area.

Smith's Food King--I also thought the other site had been Smith's. Yet, discussed on another thread:

http://www.groceteria.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=1087

thanks again!

[runchadrun]

The first references I could find to Kmart Foods was in 1969. In 1971 Baza'r took over the Kmart Foods operation, including the Industry Kmart. The other locations were Bellflower, Buena Park, Covina, Fullerton, Montclair, Northridge, Orange, Rialto, San Bernardino, Simi, Thousand Oaks, and Ventura

The Northridge store, which is of the same vintage as the Industry store, is also facing its demise to be replaced by condos. It's just in the planning stages now but it would explain why the store has had no remodeling work has been done to it since the Sears merger though they finally started cleaning the floors regularly.

[Dean]

The first references I could find to Kmart Foods was in 1969. In 1971 Baza'r took over the Kmart Foods operation, including the Industry Kmart. The other locations were Bellflower, Buena Park, Covina, Fullerton, Montclair, Northridge, Orange, Rialto, San Bernardino, Simi, Thousand Oaks, and Ventura

The Northridge store, which is of the same vintage as the Industry store, is also facing its demise to be replaced by condos. It's just in the planning stages now but it would explain why the store has had no remodeling work has been done to it since the Sears merger though they finally started cleaning the floors regularly.

Hey Chad! As always...you're on it! thanks!

So the sites mentioned all had KMart Foods. Would be great to see pix of those locations with the KMart Foods signage. Also...a photo of the Baza'r GENIE logo would be great. I checked the thread on Baza'r...and didn't see anything.

http://www.groceteria.com/board/viewtop ... ight=bazar

As luckysaver stated...the parking lot is huge. Wasted space...as they would NEVER have that many people parked there at one time!

The San Bernardino site is exactly the same. Enormous parking lot. When Baza'r left...it must've become Thrifty Drug. It was that for years. Currently, the KMart is an indoor swap meet. I think the former Thrifty area is vacant.

[Dean]

Found the following about the Rialto location:

Former Rialto, Calif., Kmart Eyed for Mental Health Facility.
From: Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News | Date: 8/9/1998 | Author: Benson, Don
Print Digg del.icio.us
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Aug. 10--San Bernardino County plans to gather several mental health functions under one roof and, in the process, improve the local business environment in a Rialto neighborhood.

The county Board of Supervisors has signed a lease for a building that once was a Kmart store at Foothill Boulevard and Pepper Street. The Department of Behavioral Health will use the facility as an outpatient clinic and for administration.

[Dean]

One more!

Here's the link to the current tenant of the San Bernardino site. There is a shot of the front of the store.

http://www.dviproductions.com/DVI_Produ ... _Mall.html

The KMart site closed, and was relocated to a brand new store in the City of Highland on Highland Avenue...near Victoria.

The original store became a KMart clearance center that I think was called VARIETY OUTLET, PRICE ADVANTAGE, or something closely related. I can't remember at the moment...anyone else remember?! There was a small number of these across the country. The logo had a lightning bolt.

The Highland location ultimately closed, and has been sitting vacant for years. Recently, the plywood was removed from the front...so possibly something is moving in.

[runchadrun]

Back to the grocery topic... how's this?

[Dean]

Back to the grocery topic... how's this?

Ask and you shall receive? You amaze me Chad! thanks so much!

I KNEW I remembered the GENIE!

Again, thanks to you and our HUMBLE HOST for this site!

[jamcool]

In Phoenix, Bashas' took over the K Mart food departments in the 70s, they closed in the 80s when the K expanded their merchandise selections.

[rich]

In response to this post from another thread:

Not so sure unions were a factor. The Allied Supermarkets-operated K-Mart Foods stores in Cleveland were union and Cleveland was/is more of a union town than DC. It's more likely that K-Mart entered the market later than other places and/or they didn't have a suitable partner to take the K-Mart Foods name. There do seem to have been places that didn't have K-Mart Foods: the ancient 1960s Nashville K-Mart that was near me didn't seem to have had a place for a food store---the major competitors in that area had been HG Hill, Kroger, & Winn-Dixie, none of whom had K-Mart stores, to my knowledge. I don't think Allied got as far East as DC and it would have been a little far for Colonial (although they could have run the stores out of Richmond, but that operation was already starting to die in the K-Mart Foods era). The K-Mart/Grand Union combos seemed to date from the mid-70s, after K-Mart Foods stores stopped being opened and K-Mart started to build new stores in partnership with mainline chains like A&P. K-Mart also opened stores in conjunction with Grand Union in GU's New England territories during the 70s.

[krogerclerk]

KMart Foods seem to be spotty outside of the Great Lakes states, where both Allied and KMart had a greater logistical advantage. KMart Foods in other regions seem to date from the late-60's and early-70's and therefore were short lived as such. Aside from Allied in the Midwest and Florida, Colonial and Alterman's split the Southeast, often replacing their former KMart Foods with their banners after the partnerships were dissolved. Colonial continued to be a supermarket anchor of KMart centers throughout the 1970's in the Carolinas and Georgia.

[Groceteria]

As noted above, though, Allied did run some of the Kmart Foods locations in the southeast at some point, notably Charlotte NC, where the stores were actually rebranded briefly as Wrigley stores in 1975.

[rich]

During the '60s, Safeway & Giant aggressively competed against new competitors in the DC market. One of the Shop-Rite coo-op's chains briefly entered the market in the mid/late 60s with a low price format. Safeway, Giant, and to a lesser extent, Grand Union cut prices at stores near the Shop-Rites and eliminated their competitive advantage. That was after Kroger had left the market despite a significant investment. In an environment like that, I'm not sure an outside operator like Allied or Colonial would have been interested in opening stores with K-Mart. I can't vouch for all of them, but the oldest K-Marts I've seen in the DC area look like they would have been built after the "KMart Foods" era. K-Mart seems to have bought other chains' stores in the 70s and perhaps that was when they started to establish themselves in the area. The K-Mart in Langley Park used to be Kann's (a low-end mainline department store that went bust in the early/mid 70s)--I think that store may have closed recently. One, not far away, in Chillum had belonged to another chain.