Alpha Beta spin-offs

Uh...California.

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javelin
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Alpha Beta spin-offs

Post by javelin »

Years ago I had been rummaging around the internet and came across a picture of a "FAD" store in Rubidoux, CA (may have been this site). Similar to Big Star and WEO? Not familiar with those.

I do remember the Skaggs Alpha Beta stores (only one I ever saw was in Anaheim), and it seemed to me that they only were around for a couple of years.

Wasn't Food4Less originally an Alpha Beta spin off as well?
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Groceteria
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Post by Groceteria »

Answers to your questions:

http://www.groceteria.com/alphabeta/index.html

-- FAD was Alpha Beta's discount format. The name was used for a limited time.

-- The Skaggs Alpha Beta brand was the result of the merger of American Stores with Skaggs Drugstores.

-- Yucaipa, which already owned Food4Less in SoCal, also ended up purchasing most of Alpha Beta's SoCal branches.
javelin
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Post by javelin »

Any pictures of the "FAD" store? Was it a full service store or was it limited? I can't find that photo online anymore.
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Groceteria
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Post by Groceteria »

javelin wrote:Any pictures of the "FAD" store? Was it a full service store or was it limited? I can't find that photo online anymore.
Did you click on the photo slideshow on the page listed above? There is a picture of a FAD store. I have no idea if it's the one you saw before, but it's the only one that's ever been featured on this site. The location is unidentified; its from a 1973 company history.
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Post by Terry K »

Groceteria wrote:Answers to your questions:

http://www.groceteria.com/alphabeta/index.html

-- FAD was Alpha Beta's discount format. The name was used for a limited time.

-- The Skaggs Alpha Beta brand was the result of the merger of American Stores with Skaggs Drugstores.

-- Yucaipa, which already owned Food4Less in SoCal, also ended up purchasing most of Alpha Beta's SoCal branches.
And for the origin of Food4Less, we need not look much further than Kansas where F4L was started by Falley's that Burkle and Yucaipa and is now owned by AWG (which is phasing out the name)
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Post by runchadrun »

Groceteria wrote:The location is unidentified; its from a 1973 company history.
I have an LA Times article (which I think I sent to you) from 1979 about FAD and at the time there was a single location in Santa Ana and it had opened in March, 1979.

Vons also had an operation called TODI in Huntington Beach in 1978. It was divided into two stores, one selling liquor and one selling food but was later consolidated into a single store.
socalgrocer

Post by socalgrocer »

To respond to Javelin:

Food4Less is not really an AB spinoff. The parent company at the time, Yucaipa, acquired most So-cal AB'S (grocery units only) from American Stores and merged it with Food4Less, which had F4L conventional stores.
This was back in 1991. F4L gave AB a new green logo with a modern font and placed F4L plastic bags in the stores. This lasted 4 years until F4L acquired Ralphs Grocery Company and convered most conventional F4L/AB into Ralphs banner.

Esther Cramer's 1973 The Alpha Beta Story listed that the Alpha Beta Company operated stores under the following banners:

Alpha Beta (SO-CAL /NO-CAL/Central divisions)
F.A.D (short lived warehouse store, not related to F4L)
Alphy's Coffee Shop
Hy-Lo Drugs

She mentioned about future plans to enter the garden/nursery business with a few stores and stand-alone travel agencies. She never did publish future editions of her book (she was a local historian from La Habra , since AB headquarters were at 777 Harbor (now CVS Distribution).

socalgrocer
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Post by socalgrocer »

runchadrun,

Alpha Beta Company shut down the FAD division in 1970, according to Esther Cramer. The store sites were either sold or converted to AB.

Esther Cramer's book has an appendix that lists all Alpha Beta Company store (current and future) for all their banners - AB, Alphy's, Hy-Lo, and FAD. She listed 9 locations and 2 future sites without addresses. The picture is probably the Rubidoux/Riverside site at 6316 Mission (near the 60 freeway at Valley Way). This was FAD68.

In case you were wondering, other A.B.C sites from 1973 in Santa Ana:
Hy-Lo3004: 430 17th Street
AB51: 2120 Bristol Street => A FAD site
AB76: 2521 McFadden Ave
AB2: 420 17TH ST (some AB'S paired with HyLo)
AB15: 1010 Main Street
AB35 5111 Edinger Ave
AB37: 2228 17TH ST

socal grocer
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Post by Groceteria »

socalgrocer wrote: Alpha Beta Company shut down the FAD division in 1970, according to Esther Cramer. The store sites were either sold or converted to AB.
FYI, the full list from that book is already featured on the site:

http://www.groceteria.com/alphabeta/pop ... tions.html.

Also, if we're going to discuss locations that were just Alpha Beta stores and not spinoffs, there's already a pre-existing thread:

http://www.groceteria.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=677
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