Groceteria.com

Some nice photos on the auction site.

These stores look a lot nicer than past Bi Los that I have seen come up on the auction site. One looks to be a former A&P; are the others former Winn Dixies?

http://www.grafeauction.com/auctions.cfm

Hey guys on this auction this is a Bi-Lo interior I have never seen before. Is it from Red Foods? Link is provided from http://www.grafeauction.com

http://www.grafeauction.com/auctions/I'm ... 1&State=TN

Actually, most of them look like they may well have born as Bi-Lo, although I'm not sure what that colonial/early american store might have been.

The colonial-type of store was definitely a former Red Foods. There was one of this style visible just to the south on I-24 between I-75 and the "ridge cut" prior to descending into downtown Chattanooga. I was in one of these stores in the early nineties, and while the interior of the store was much more modern than the exterior, the squatty look of the store pretty much continued on the inside. My main memory is that the ceiling was extremely low for a large grocery store. I have no idea how many of this type of store was built.

The statement that most of these stores started out as Bi-Lo is pretty much accurate. Stores built in north Georgia [Ellijay, Gainesville, Elberton, and Clayton, for example] all had the same look, although the size of the stores varied.

All five of these stores are original Red Foods, only the Browns Ferry location has its original Red Food exterior and interior. The southern colonial style was an evolution of the style of former owner H.G. Hills of Nashville. This store has been closed for 2-3 years and had not been remodeled by BiLo.

The Cookeville and Athens locations represent recent store closings while the Hixson Pike location in Chattanooga was recently replaced by a Super BiLo. BiLo expanded the stores and did a very good job obscuring the origins a Red Food, the new built stores in Ellijay, GA (now closed after a short stint as a Southern Family Market) and Chatsworth, GA are very similar to these stores. The Athens store is the only non-colonial style Red Food, having opened a few years prior to the Ahold acquisition of Red Food.

Red Food was owned by the French chain Promodes which also owned Houchens of Bowling Green, KY and was a partner with SuperValu in the Chicago area Cub Foods. After selling Red Food to Ahold, Houchens was returned to local ownership and their interest in Chicagoland Cubs sold to SuperValu. Previous Red Food owner, Hills, once was one of the mid-south's largest supermarket operators, operating Red Stores in Chattanooga, H.G. Hills in the Nashville region and Hills in Birmingham. The Alabama Hills were sold to Winn-Dixie in the early 60's and a few of them lasted into the 90's with their southern colonial exterior and "flowerpot" signage. Today only H.G. Hills survives, but as a wholesaler to independently operated stores in the Nashville region rather than an actual chain.