Groceteria.com

Brand new, but with some caveats: https://www.groceteria.com/place/us-missouri/st-louis/

The big issue is that I somehow managed not to end up with the Kroger, National, and Bettendorf-Rapp listings for 1966 and 1970. I hope to correct that by the end of the summer.

Fascinating! I hadn't realized before how late National's entrance into the St. Louis market was...which makes their success and longevity there even more of a surprise. Contrast this with National's disastrous ad-hoc expansion into Michigan during the exact same era.

I found this 1995 article on St. Louis supermarkets, and it helps fill in a number of details:

* Schnucks' first store was a "confectionery" located at 3968 Labadie Avenue, and it opened in 1939. This location appears in the 1946 column, so it may have been converted to an actual grocery-store format by this time.

* National's aforementioned entrance into St. Louis came by buying out the local Food Center chain in 1953.

* Bettendorf-Rapp was in fact a division of Allied Supermarkets (aka Wrigley)! That's a company that I can always count on popping up in places I least expect it to. I wonder if they lasted long enough to run the Kmart Food stores in St. Louis? Or did National run those, like they did in Milwaukee?

* It seems that there ought to have been Rapp stores in St. Louis prior to Bettendorf's and Rapp's 1958 merger, but none are listed in the table. Is the '50s data incomplete, or was Rapp a non-St. Louis chain?

* It's fascinating how the stores of just about every vanquished St. Louis chain ended up in the hands of Schnucks. Bettendorf-Rapp? Sold in 1970 to Schnucks. A&P? Sold most of their stores to National, who sold to Schnucks. Kroger? Auctioned off its stores in 1986, with most going to Schnucks or National (who sold to Schnucks). National? Schnucks. Once the research gets fleshed out more, it'll be revealing to see just how many of Schnucks' stores started out in the hands as of another retailer.

* I've heard that St. Louis was one of Kroger's oldest expansion markets, so it may be worth checking the directories from 1920 or even 1915 to see just how long ago their history as a chain goes.

St Louis is now updated to include the missing listings from 1966 and 1970:

https://www.groceteria.com/place/us-missouri/st-louis/

There's a nice National pylon store at 1420 Montgomery Street, similar to the ones I dug up in Michigan. And the labelscar from the original diamond-shaped sign is still visible!

There are bound to be other gems in this list as well. It'll take a long time to sort through them all.

Betterdorf and Rapp were separate chains that were combined by Allied. They bought Rapp first in 1956 and then Bettendorf in 1958. Th

Grew up in St. Louis during the 60s/70s. This is good info. From the above, I am not sure whether there were any K-Mart Foods in St. Louis, though Allied sold off Bettendorf Rapp in about 1970, plus was a relatively upscale store (they had unusual typography in their newspaper ads, for example)which would have eliminated any particular synergy about them running K-Mart Foods.

Schnucks did supply Venture Foods (co-located with Venture Stores, which was May Department Stores' discount chain) in the 70s.
Target was also in St. Louis, and had groceries in their earliest stores. I'm not sure who supplied them.

With both Venture and Target in St. Louis quite early, K-Mart had a really downscale image.

Hope this makes it through--it is a screenshot of the Bettendorf-Rapp stores in the mid 60s, likely right before they were bought by Schnucks.

Essentially each of the "and Lindbergh" stores were Bettendorf, and the smaller the street number stores were Rapp's.

66 and Cheshire was a Rapps. Standard in-line 20k sqft late 50s supermarket, nothing special. In General Grant shopping center, about 1/4 mile away from Jansen's IGA Foodliner (pretty comprehensive store) and roughly catty-corner from an A&P.

66 and Lindbergh was an all-singing/all dancing Bettendorf's built in the early 60s in major competition with an all-singing all dancing Schnucks about 3/4 mile in on Watson/Rte 66 (the above mentioned Rapp's was about 1 1/2 miles further in). Bettendorf's had the plate-glass automatic doors which were quite thrilling to a 5 year old (Schnucks had the aluminum-framed ones which weren't nearly as cool). This store, after Schnucks bought it, closed as a supermarket, became Heritage House Smorgasbord for a good 15 years, then became various big-box stuff.
This was also right across the street from one of the two Korvette's centers in St. Louis, which had a Food Town supermarket (afaik was always a low-end Schnucks operation) which they converted into Rock Bottom Warehouse Foods and ran out the lease until about 1990.

(Wanted to make sure image would post)

Starting from the top:
Downtown store--??? Schnucks did have a small store at Mansion House Center (redevelopment-y downtown apartment towers)...no idea whether this was that or something else.

Clayton/Hanley--high-end store in very affluent suburbia, only real competition was Straubs. Schnucks operated the location till about 10 years ago when I think it was scraped and rebuilt---it could not go another day as it was from the early 50s.

Big Bend/Elm--store in affluent inner-ring suburbia (Webster Groves). Schnucks operated for awhile, then built a big store behind it (45k sqft store mid 70s) with restaurant etc. Became doctors' office. Likely Rapps. About 1 1/2 miles north of the Watson/Cheshire store mentioned below but much more upscale neighborhood.

10725 Manchester (essentially Manchester/Lindbergh). Schnucks operated for years, though they had a flagship store about 3 miles west on Manchester (with an A&P in between). Now a car dealer; Schnucks also has a flagship about 1/2 mile east this location.

Sutton/Maplewood--no idea, likely a small in-line Rapps store. Didn't last long past this.

Rest in the West and North section weren't nearby so nothing to add.

Hampton Village--first suburban shopping center in St. Louis, anchored with JCPenney and Bettendorf-Rapp Opened about 1949. Shopping center still there; Target across Hampton, big box and medical offices. Older part of St. Louis City, solidly middle class.

Rest of the South locations were pretty much obsolete at the time...

Lindbergh/Baptist Church---cookie cutter of the other "/Lindbergh" stores. Became and stayed Schnucks until a larger unit was built in a strip center across Lindbergh in the late 70s. Schnucks used for a bakery outlet for awhile, now is a thrift store. The competition was a National in a strip center across Baptist Church Road in Concord Plaza that didn't last much past 1975

Also found a FTC investigation of urban stores in St. Louis in the mid 60s. Lots of minutiae about operations of urban stores and pricing.

Was intrigued to see an admission that the Kroger in Crestwood (Crestwood Plaza inline---roughly open from 1957 to 1973 with difficult visibility from the road) had to be operated on a special pricing book given the competition (from Schnucks across Sappington). The replacement store (across Watson at street level)

Also furthest store supplied by the St. Louis warehouse was Fairfield, IL.