Groceteria.com

I don't think I ever knew before tonight that Lucky actually operated some standalone supermarkets under the Gemco Foods banner. I had always assumed that all the Gemco-branded stores were the membership department store/supermarket combos.

The one I was looking at tonight was located in Vallejo at 2001 Solano Blvd. It opened as Lucky in 1959, rebranded as Gemco Foods in 1963, and then rebranded again as Lucky in 1967. There was apparently no department store attached. The original Lucky store looks to have been torn down around 2010. There was a large new addition to the center in the 1970s that now houses a Cardenas in what used to be a Payless Drugs/Rite-Aid.

There is no mention of membership in any of the ads I saw.

I'm going to do some research on my own, but does anyone know more about this format, how widespread it was, and how long it lasted? I know there were others and I feel like this is a major piece of a puzzle that I somehow missed over the years.

It might be of the warehouse price-impact format and Gemco Foods may have been Lucky's first attempt at this format until SuperSaver in the early 1990s. It is possible that Lucky might have been the first supermarket chain to test this format in 1959. By the 1970s, Lucky almost became a retail conglomerate doing business in grocery, membership warehouse, sporting goods, pharmacy drugstore, fabrics, and auto parts!

Albertsons had the Max Foods Grocery Warehouse division. Stores were known as Max Foods by Albertsons, Grocery Warehouse, Monte Mart, or Max Grocery Warehouse. After the 1999 merger with American Stores, they renamed the division "SuperSaver by Albertsons" and separately created "Extreme Inc" (dba SuperSaver) to oversee about 24 SuperSaver stores in the Southeast USA but then all went downhill as part of the company split in 2006 (the "New Albertsons Inc" and "Albertsons LLC" era, when the LLC bought out the lower performing MFGW division). When they decided to bring back the Lucky name in Southern California (part of New Albertsons Inc), several Albertsons stores were converted to a warehouse discount format which catered mostly to hispanic shoppers. 2 SuperSavers in the Salt Lake City area were converted to Lucky as well and they are still there as of today as a division of Albertsons Companies. On their Safeway division, 2 Safeway stores in the SF Bay Area are known as "Pak n Save" - the vestige of a price-impact chain that Safeway bought in the early 1980s - but the photos seen on Yelp show them with Lifestyle 2.0 decor package exactly like a regular Safeway - one of those 2 have a Safeway Pharmacy. I remember Max Foods in Southern California didn't have weekly ads like Albertsons but they also had the monthly "Big Book of Savings" ad (with a different layout or different merchandise on sale)

Kroger currently operates price-impact stores under 3 names - Food4Less (Southern California), FoodsCo (Bakersfield/Santa Maria in Southern California and in the SF Bay Area), and Ruler Foods (Ohio). Food4Less and FoodsCo are part of the Ralphs Grocery Company division while Ruler Foods is part of another Kroger division. Mostly the same merchandise as Ralphs but a bit cheaper. The Food4Less franchises that are NOT part of Kroger are operated by other grocers.

Raleys and SaveMart in Northern California also have price-impact warehouse format divisions. The former Scolari's chain also had a warehouse-format division.

Safeway before the merger with Albertsons had 2 outlet stores in Southern California called "Expo Bargain Center", in a former KMART in La Verne that they just bought in preparation for reconstruction as a Vons and a former Vons in Pomona.

Alpha Beta created F-A-D in 1967 (Food at Discount). Several of their locations such as Covina (Vincent Ave at San Bernardino Rd) and West Riverside (Valley Way at Mission Blvd) were converted to this format for a few years before going back to the traditional supermarket format.

The Chinese grocer Tawa (owner of 99 Ranch Market) have "168 Market" as their discount division. The store buildings were acquired/leased (not converted from an existing 99) and most of their location are very close to an existing nearby 99 Ranch. Same merchandise as 99 but is only a bit cheaper.

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