Well, here's the current lineup...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?
*Hy-Vee (14 stores in metro with a 15th under construction)
*Dahl's (12 stores as soon as the Ankeny store is completed)
*Fareway (7 stores in metro)
*Aldi (4 stores in metro...at least that I can think of...)
*Wal-Mart (4 supercenters in metro with a 5th under construction, 1 Sam's Club)
*Super Target (3 supercenters in metro)
*Costco (1 store in metro)
We had a few Supervalu indies in town as well until just a few years ago. The three I can think of all ran out of old Safeways (two Marinas and one later build...that one had the original 70's Safeway interior through the mid 90's). All closed. One was demolished for a Walgreens, one is a Hy-Vee Drugstore that doubles as a neighborhood grocery store (it's a Marina with a modern facade), and the other subdivided into a transmission place, a bar, a nickel arcade, and a tattoo shop. All of which I'm pretty sure have closed.
With the exception of the recent Albertson's experiment, all the major traditional supermarket chains were out of here decades ago. Supervalu also had a distribution center here that was closed a few years ago as the indies they serviced all fell to the Wal-Mart sword.
Across the state, it's gotten to the point where it's not much different. Hy-Vee, Fareway, Aldi, Wal-Mart, and Super Target are joined by Nash-Finch owned Econo Foods and an occasional Cub Foods. And THOSE are starting to disappear. The Quad Cities are a little more diverse with some Jewel-Osco operations on the Illinois side of the border. And Schnuck's just opened a store there. LOVE their interior.
Casualties over the years have included Thriftway, Safeway (the state is littered with old Safeway buildings), Albertson's, Easter's (another local chain which Nash-Finch absorbed) and Eagle Country Markets (that whole chain folded).
I should probably sit down and write brief histories on some of these over in "Specific Chains", kind of like the one I did for Fareway on the old board. And yes...take pictures!