Groceteria.com

I found an interesting article posted on the LAist website that has some good photos about the history of supermarkets in SoCal that no longer exist. Hopefully it will be of interest to people on this site:

https://laist.com/2019/07/05/las_lost_s ... e_past.php

They debunk a myth that I always thought was true. I remember being told that Alpha Beta did not sell liquor because they were owned by Mormons which turns out not to be true, although the reason for not selling liquor was based on the owner's religious beliefs according to the article.

Alpha Beta's parent company for much of its history until 1991, American Stores Company (ASC), happened to be headquartered next to the mormon-owned Temple Square in Salt Lake City. I remember seeing a beer/liquor section at the few Alpha Beta's I've been to in the San Gabriel Valley in the 1980s. When Ron Burkle's Yucaipa Companies took over the remaining Alpha Beta locations (from the divestiture settlement when ASC bought out Lucky Stores Inc) and merged it under its Food4Less Supermarkets Inc unit (which in SoCal included Food4Less, Boys and Ralphs) for the final 4 years of its existence, they expanded the merchandising at those stores and they did carry beer/liquor.

Alpha Beta finally ceased after Fred Meyer bought Food4Less Supermarkets from Yucaipa and all SoCal operations became part of the reorganized Ralphs Grocery Company in which Food4Less became a division of Ralphs, most Alpha Beta stores converted to either Ralphs or Food4Less, and "Alpha Beta Company" simply became just a registration name for licenses for many of the Ralphs 200-series stores and several smaller Food4Less locations.

I remember the Alhambra Alpha Beta had an Alphy's Restaurant next to it. I believe it was run by whoever was running Alpha Beta at the time.