Odd grocery store names

Alpha Beta, in Orange County, CA

Hanky Dinky, Big Chief, Zazzeras's.

That should read Hinky Dinky. Damn you, Autocorrect!

Piggly Wiggly

I've always thought Publix is an odd name for a grocery store.

Almac's in Rhode Island.

Great Scott!!

Good thing Mr. Butt went with HEB instead of Butt's.

Fisher Foods, Pick-n-Pay, Stop-n-Shop, Foodtown, Albers, Big Bear, Food Fair, Farmer Jack, Chatham, National, Century, Queen's, Thorofare

Jitney-Jungle

King Kullen in Lawn Guyland, NY.

Delchamps

Hy-Vee

Grand union. Finast.

Piggly Wiggly

Aldi

Trader Joe’s

Tesco

Giant Eagle

Pantry Pride .

Kash n' Karry, Tampa area

Moo-N-Oink was a long time West Side Chicago meat market, now defunct.

Red Owl

Sure, r3, sure...

Hills

Harris Teeter in the South. Favorite convenience store/gas station name: Kum and Go. Also known as Ejaculate and Evacuate.

King Soopers is a bizarre name.

Lucky's in So Cal.

How did they come up with Safeway for a market? Is it the safe way to purchase groceries?

Perhaps it’s meant to imply that the groceries are safe to consume?

R27 There's a sketchy location in Denver known as the UnSafeway.

Not really a grocery store - but we had a butcher shop in my hometown called "Beecher Meats."

There was a supermarket in Cheyenne, Wyoming, called Buttrey's Big Fresh. It was bought up by Albertsons, so a poll was conducted as to whether the market should be rebranded as Albertsons or keep its original name. To vote, you'd dial a toll-free number, which spelled "BUTTREY." People soon discovered that the number also spelled "BUTTSEX," and public hilarity ensued. The voting was quietly dropped and the market became Albertsons.

r1 Alpha Beta was all over the west. It was named that because it originally prided itself on being the first grocery store to display its merchandise in alphabetical order.

Their spokesmodel for many years was Alan Hamel (aka Mr. Suzanne Somers.)

r16 Aldi is short for Albrecht Diskont. It was founded by the Albrecht family.

Trader Joe's is named for its founder, Joe Coulombe. He added the "trader" part to go with the Tiki/Polynesian them in the stores.

Food Circus

Big Y

I came here to say Jitney Jungle, but R10 beat me to it. I can hardly believe someone else remembered that. How old are you, and where did you grow up?

The Santiary Grocery Company was a long ago chain that got absorbed into Safeway. I guess the name made sense in a time when local grocery stores, I would imagine, could be pretty filthy. Skaggs is another chain Safeway took over. Skaggs sounds like an unpleasant skin condition.

I think Skaggs was once part of Albertson's.

Remember Waldbaum's?

It was way before my time but I know there was a Sanitary Dairy and grocery where my parents grew up.

Sanitary reminds me of feminine napkins.

Schnuck’s

Weingartens in Bryan, Texas. Long gone, but it was great store ahead of its time.

Tom-Boy

Tom Thumb

Walmart

as a child a grew up with Heinen's in Cleveland but I thought it was Hind Ends

Jine Iggle (Pittsburghese for Giant Eagle)

R32, so they were stocked in alphabetical order rather than by category.

I guess that is one way to prevent comparison shopping.

"Schnuck’s"

"The friendliest stores in town!"

As a kid growing up in San Antonio, Handy-Andy was the big grocery chain. HEB wasn't so popular because they didn't sell beer (conservative christian). Once HEB decided to sell beer and wine, they took off.

Actually, R42 Weingarten's was based in Houston and had stores all around the area.

Food Town.

Pleazing markets in Pensacola, Florida

Everybody's in CT

[quote] That should read Hinky Dinky. Damn you, Autocorrect!

Either way, it's a really weird name. What kind of name is that? I'd be embarrassed to say, I'm going to Hinky Dinky's.

Schwegmann's Giant Supermarkets in New Orleans (defunct since the late '90s)

I'm linking this other thread about 20th century grocery stores. It is kind of crazy (in a good way)

Interesting to hear the history behind Alpha Beta and how it's melded with Skaggs. I was not aware.

As a small child in elementary school in the 1970's we lived in the brand new developing suburbs of Texas. Sweeping plains with nothing, and every house and building going up around us brand new.

I think around 1975 a gigantic grocery store/everything store opened in our neighborhood, to much fanfare. We'd never seen anything like it. Almost anything you'd find in a little mall, arranged like a grocery store (with side-areas for an electronics store, photo shop, pharmacy, cafe, book store/newsstand, etc.) in a giant air-conditioned building. It was called "Skaggs Alpha Beta." By the time I was in middle school, the very late 70's, it changed its name to "Skaggs Albertson's." Now (it's still there!), it's called simply Albertsons.

I'm almost certain there was a parentheses in Albertons way back then, possibly even Skaggs, but I can't find any into on the history of the company name changes on hand.

When my partner and I moved upstate in NY we discovered Price Chopper. We thought it was a weird name for a grocery store. Like the name of a horror movie about an insane grocery store manager. They even have a little cartoon ax as part of the logo. We got used to it, but whenever friends from the city come up they always laugh when they first see it.

In Texas in the 80's there was a chain called "Sack n' Save."

The gimmick was they had no bag boys on staff, so you bagged your own groceries and the store passed the savings onto you!

Smart & Final (nicknamed Fart 'n Smile}

I had totally forgotten about Handy Andy! Weingarten's pivoted into a very successful real estate concern.

Ukrop.

Is Smart and Final like a discount store or something?

ShopRite is so wrong.

I always thought Sluts R'Us was a distasteful name but they seem to do decent business.

Schwegmann in New Orleans used to have an actual bar near the entrance for husbands to hang out while their wives did the shopping.

One of the gay bars near a Schwegmann once held a "Miss Upper Schwegmann Heights" contest where drag queens dressed like housewives in curlers and bedroom slippers.

I didn't know they went out of business R20. I remember all their ads on WGCI in the late 90s.

Are D'Agostino and Gristede's still around?

Also, not a grocery store, but remember Rockbottom? We used to hit the store in Yonkers by Ground Round.

Not a grocery store, but similar to a name like Stop & Shop or Shop n Save is a restaurant chain called Eat n Park in Pittsburgh. I always thought the name should be reversed, since you have to park before you can eat.

Not a grocery store, but similar to a name like Stop & Shop or Shop n Save is a restaurant chain called Eat n Park in Pittsburgh. I always thought the name should be reversed, since you have to park before you can eat.

Def. Piggly-Wiggly. We had an Alpha Beta in Pacific Beach (San Diego). Everyone referred to it as "Ate A Potata". I don't know why.....

R60, I always liked their older name, Smart & Final Iris Company.

We had a fresh grocer called Wheelin’ and Dealin’.

Fed-Mart in TX and Cali.

Grand Union (nickname Grand Onion) in New Jersey and the NE.

This just sounds nasty: Runny Food Store.

Big Bunny in Mass. Store has a giant rabbit mascot on the roof. At Christmas he's a santa bunny. WTF.

R63 Smart & Final is a buy-in-bulk store, much smaller than Costco.

Food Lion

Growing up in SoCal I recall markets such as Luckys, Alpha-Beta, Safeway, Market Basket, Ralphs, Albertsons and Vons.

I’m a West Coaster. WTF is a Wawa? I saw one once on vacation.

Wawa is like a 7-11 but with a much better selection, much better service, and just a better overall vibe. I’ve seen them in NJ and PA. Not sure where else they are. Speaking of weird names, Sheetz is Wawa’s rival.

Ooh, [R73] !! Thanks for reminding me - we would stop at the Grand Union in Lake George to pick up food for the cabin we stayed in from when I was 6 to 19 years old. Great memories...

R69 Yeah, Eat n Park always annoyed me.

(Not to mention that their food was way blander than King's)

Big M Key Food

Wawa is sort of like a convenience store meets Panera Bread.

[quote] Fed-Mart in TX and Cali.

The name FedMart made sense because originally it was a membership store, like Costco or Sam's Club, but open to only government employees.

Tom Thumb Wawa Goodwives

Price Chopper. The logo is an axe cutting a coin.

C-Town.

Wawa and Sheetz are similar - both are turbo convenience stores/gas stations that also have fresh food.

Sheetz is certainly not getting any Michelin stars but I have to say, I have had a few of their sandwiches while traveling and for what you are paying, they're nice. Certainly better than most available fast food options nearby.

Ralph's is the best.

There's a grocery chain in NYC called Pioneer, but they should be called anything but that. Their stores are awful.

Bohack's

Daitch Shopwell

Raley's- it was a chain that got bought out by Albertsons.

In Western Canada, one chain is called Save on Foods, which is sensible enough, until you see that it is part of the Overwaitea Food Group. It makes it sound like they only sell fattening things there.

The best part about ShopRite...the Can-Can sale!

I do my share of shopping there, r88.

I remember the annoying as fuck Let's Go Krogering jingle.

Down here in the Atlanta region we have Publix, Kroger and Walmart. Oh there's ALDI and a couple other and all the Trader Joe's are in the city and immediate environs of Atlanta. None here in Decatur, GA. but we're only 13 miles from Atlanta.

R89 the good pioneers smell like bleach because they’re trying to keep the stench away. The bad ones reek.

Phil's Food Queen - a few stores in L.A.'s Valley.

'Food Lion' in Virginia/North Carolina

Winn-Dixie

Bubba’s Bun Shop

R101 Winn-Dixie is the result of the chain Winn & Lovett buying a chain called Dixie Home and merging the names.

U-Totem (Denver, CO area)

Chicago had Moo & Oink Stores, famous for their commercials:

On Safeway:

The original slogan was "an admonition and an invitation" to "Drive the Safeway; buy the Safeway". The point of the name was that the grocery operated on a cash-and-carry basis — it did not offer credit, as grocers traditionally had done. It was the "safe way" to buy because a family could not get into debt via its grocery bill (as many families did at the time, especially during the Great Depression).

Boulevard Big Pig

R71 Do you remember Boney's in San Diego?

I worked for Henry's Marketplace from 1999 - 2001 (North Park, La Mesa, and Lemon Grove). They were bought out by Wild Oats towards the end of my tenure. Before they rebranded, they were known as Boney's.

Lidl. How the hell am I supposed to pronounce that?

R109, I think it's pronounced "little".

Tote-Sum

(a convenience store chain)

Elm Farms, in West Roxbury, a suburb inside Boston. I could never pronounce it, so I called it Ellum Farms. They changed the name to Roche Brothers in the 70's, and it is a huge, wonderful market. I think there is just the one.

Hey, R89 and R98. There was a Pioneer a few blocks from home when I lived in Bushwick. Convenient but I hated shopping there. Creepy vibe, narrow aisles, high prices.

There was a small chain in the LA area called Market Basket. I used to tag a long with my mom whenever she went. Then one day, around the early ‘80s, they were all gone.

I've often wondered what the name "Pathmark" had to do with groceries.

KING Soopers

[quote]Raley's- it was a chain that got bought out by Albertsons.

You must be in Las Vegas or New Mexico. Raley's is still very much in business and has over 120 stores in northern California and Nevada. They just sold their southwestern stores to other companies when exiting the market.

Try-N-Save.

I wish we had the equivalent of Sheetz, Wawa, and Wegmann's on the west coast.

Northgate Gonzalez

There is still a Market Basket chain in Mass. it doesn’t have anything to do with the defunct West Coast chain though. Their new stores are big and very nice, but there is something old timey about the decor so that it seems the interior is like walking into a pristine supermarket from 1966. They also had no website until 2017!

R118 ...and Monstromart!

[quote] Lidl. How the hell am I supposed to pronounce that?

Lee-dull. (But like a quick "dll" - sort of like the second syllable in strudel.)

Kroger is all I remember.

When going to school in St Louis the nearest grocery store was a Schnucks in the ghetto, somewhere down Lindell or Olive. A pit, unstocked, dirty. So bad it was once written up by the WSJ in an article about food deserts. I called it Schniggers. I would drive to the Schnucks in Ladue lol.

Pantry Pride

Thriftway

We had Hinky Dinky stores. Their main competitors were Jack and Jill stores, so it got strange regardless of where you shopped.

IGA Stores were fun because of the way they named their stores. If you had a small store it was a plain IGA, a little bigger and you were an IGA Foodliner, and the big stores were Grand Centrals. I think there were a couple more levels, also named for trains--pretty sweet marketing considering they stuck with it into the 1970s.

Hinky Dinky sounds like the strangest name ever.

In Atlanta they have nicknamed a lot of the Kroger stores: the one on Ponce de Leon is Murder Kroger for all the crimes that have been committed there, Disco Kroger is in a shopping center that was once home to Limelight disco, and Krogay is in the very gay friendly Ansley Mall area.

R129 I've heard of the MurderKroger!

Mayfair markets were a big thing in Southern California. I don't know what, if any there footprint outside of the area was.

The one in Hollywood is where we saw The Brady Bunch shopping in an episode.

The one in West Hollywood was cruise city. It's now a Gelson's.

R127 There are still IGA Foodliners, not sure about Grand Centrals.

R57 The Alpha Beta chain in California had some 145 stores (way beyond the Orange County mentioned by R2) and was eventually bought out by Ralphs (now part of Kroger).

This in legendary in Houston: Hung Dong Asian Supermarket

Hughes Markets were also in California. They were originally bought by Quality Food Centers (of Seattle) in 1996, retaining the Hughes name, but then sold a year later to Ralphs.

We seem to have thread drift here - from odd names to old names

Also there is more than one...

Red Owl. Kum & Go. Quikee Mart.

Jewel Osco for a while here in Texas. We reduced it to 'You Old Asshole'. Also, we still have Tom Thumb!

Price Chopper in the northeastern US (the logo is a swinging ax cutting into money... violent!)

Sack 'N Save in Denton, TX I remember from college. You bagged your own groceries and saved millions. I can't believe I found photos of it online, but apparently it closed just a few years ago. Incredible! (I was in college in the 80's) I googled it and found out there were few of them in the mainland US, as most were in Hawaii.

[quote]Schwegmann in New Orleans used to have an actual bar near the entrance for husbands to hang out while their wives did the shopping.

Many of the larger Hy-Vees have bars as well.

I never understood the name Super Valu chose for their pioneering bag your own purchases megastores back in the 80's - Cub Foods.

Sherm’s Thunderbird, a small southern Oregon chain

142 posts and nobody's mentioned BJ's (Wholesale Club - Eastern US)?

On a Usenet group I once followed, one poster's comment regarding club stores was, "My son just loves BJ's!"

The next post asked, "Giving or receiving?"

r143 Not exactly a grocery store.

[quote]In Atlanta they have nicknamed a lot of the Kroger stores: the one on Ponce de Leon is Murder Kroger for all the crimes that have been committed there, Disco Kroger is in a shopping center that was once home to Limelight disco, and Krogay is in the very gay friendly Ansley Mall area.

In DC they have the Social Safeway and the Soviet Safeway.

r131 Mayfair Markets were all over the west.

Pennsylvania used to have Thorofare Markets in the 70s.

They still have Tops Markets in NW PA.

[quote]Fed-Mart in TX and Cali.

I don't think they ever had a FedMart in Cali. Colombians have local businesses in which to spend their money.

Back in the '50s there was a little drive-up market in Santa Rosa, CA, called Toot 'n Tote. It was about the size of one of today's 7-Elevens. You'd drive into the parking lot and honk your horn. A clerk would come out and you'd tell her/him what you wanted, and they'd bring it out to you, like at a drive-in restaurant. We thought this was very "uptown" and avant-garde. I was a little kid at the time and thought it was great fun to go to the Toot 'n Tote in my pajamas, because I didn't have to get out of the car. Locals soon began referring to it as the Honk 'n Haul.

r149 SoCal had both FedMart and Fedco, but they were discount stores, not just supermarkets. There was also Gemco, White Front, Zody's, Woolco, Kmart, et. al. And even Two Guys, imported from New Jersey/New York, made a brief appearance. (Also Gold Circle, from Ohio, and The Treasury, owned by JCPenney)

R150, your post reminded me of Dairy Barn on Long Island. They used to be everywhere, but apparently they’re down to just five locations. Same concept as what you described. Drive up, tell them what you want, wait a moment, they get your stuff, you pay, you go.

I have one of those across the street from me -- an Alta-Dena dairy store (in CA.) They used to be ubiquitous.

Tops has ruled Buffalo/Niagara Falls, NY grocery shopping with an iron fist for decades.

"More varieties and sizes!"

Well, I'd rather shop at a store called Tops

Small Northern Indiana town I grew up in had a grocery store named Publix but it wasn't part of the Publix chain or any chain, they eventually got bought out by a large chain.

Publix is one of the weirdest names. Most stores are based on last names. Who decided to name a grocery chain something that could easily be mispronounced “Pube-licks?” At the same time, it sounds like some weird PR company or utility. I don’t get it.

R157 From the the Palm Beach Post, "According to Florida Memory, the state's repository of Florida history archives, Publix founder George Jenkins opened his first Publix Food Market in Winter Haven in 1930 after adopting the name from a struggling New York-based movie theater company called Publix Theatres Corporation"

I think it is a stupid name for a movie theater or a grocery store.

[quote]I wish we had the equivalent of Sheetz, Wawa, and Wegmann's on the west coast.

In AZ we have QT/QuickTrip, which seems like it is similar to Wawa...they sell fresh food like pizza, sandwiches, and breakfast burritos. Can't say how the quality compares, though.

I love QT, we don’t have them in my direct area but I always stop at one when taking a road trip.

Since almost every grocery chain past and present has been mentioned in this thread for its odd name, I’m curious as to what a not odd grocery store name would be.

R161 Oh, please. I'll start...

Fresh Market

Budget Foods

Dollar Pantry

Grocery Village

good ¢ents grocery stores

Bi-Lo isn't an odd name, until you look at their prices.

R161 also Shaw's and Hannaford.

r164 There's a small chain in the LA area called Buy Low.

Shart's Grocery

One Three Five

R90 Bohack had several stores in NYC during the 1960s -1970s. This photo is from The Odd Couple film from 1968, where Felix Unger, played by Jack Lemmon, goes shopping.

King Korn, no relation to King Kullen.

Anyone remember Jamail's in Houston? On Westheimer or Shepard? They had a box of blank checks under the counter in case you forgot your checkbook. It was the fancy grocery store. My grandmother didn't have two nickels to rub together but wouldn't shop anywhere else.

LIDL

I remember Jamail's very well. Incredible service, high quality, but expensive - you get what you pay for. One of the owners (all brothers) was a good friend of mine. They had money to begin with and made a fortune when they sold the property.

A&D Foodarama

Many years ago, back when there were local corner ma and pa corner grocery stores in Chicago. many belonged to a cooperative called Royal Blue. Royal Blue would have advertisements for their members in the local papers, and they were quite a large group. They seemed to die out along with the corner stores. I hadn't seen one for fifty years, until I was in Austin TX a few years ago and spotted a good sized market right down the street from the Texas Capitol Building with the old Royal Blue logos. Not sure if it was just a reuse of the name or if there was some connection.

Many of the big Chicago department stores named in a different posting had good sized grocery departments. While browsing through archived PDF copies of the Chicago Tribune, I noticed that Wieboldt Stores, a good sized local chain, featured store brand products with the "Food Club" logo. Wieboldt's discontinued their grocery department back in the early 1960's, a tragic loss as they had the best pound cake in the world, and the whole chain went out of business in the late 1980's. Today, however, there is another cooperative, called Topco Associates, which services a group of independent grocers, that also feature "Food Club" private label food products. Been wondering if there is a connection with the Wieboldt trade name. Wrote to Topco, but no reply.

R175 FoodClub works with many different brands. We have them at the local IGA.

I remember the Food Club brand as the store brand of the defunct Columbus, Ohio chain Big Bear (another great odd old supermarket name).

The first rule of Food Club is ....

Was there really a grocery store in Montana and Idaho called Butt Tray?

NOT Odd Grocery Store Names - A&P ( The Great Atlantic And Pacific Tea Company)

Stater Bros. I had no idea they were a grocery. Thought it was auto parts store.

Toot'n Totum in the Texas panhandle

Hanky Panky

r179 BUTTREY

Scot Lad Foods.

I want to open an LGBT grocery store called Manly Meats and Vadge-atables. The clerks will judge everything you buy and look you up and down to let you know the last thing you need to shovel in your butterface is the exact thing you're buying. And if you try to use coupons, the cashierettes will get on the loudspeaker to announce, "Coupon Queen in lane five. Harvey? You'll need to open another lane while I deal with this; it could take all day. Jackie on Assistance here has a coupon envelope with her."

Purity Supreme. In N.E. Sold to Stop&Shop in the 90's.

R184 like I said, Butt Tray!

A&P

(The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company)

Pubix

Sweetbay Supermarkets (Tampa, FL. area)

Itchy’s

There is a chain here in the Philly area called Acme Markets. At one point, it had the largest market share of any Philly grocery chain, but it's fallen on hard times and has closed many of its stores.

Anyway, I've never seen the name Acme used as a real company name, only as a company in Warner Brothers cartoons (usually Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny or Roadrunner toons).

R186 (off topic) a friend wants to open a high-end children's boutique called My Gay Uncle.

Pubic’s

[Quote]Winn-Dixie

When I lived in Miami, some people would pronounce it as "The Winn-Dixie[bold]s[/bold]."

My hometown had a Market Basket and a DeMoulas.

Bell Bates. Always somehow associated it with Norman Bates. It was torn down to build Trump Plaza on 61st & 3rd in Manhattan.

Sun Fresh in KC but locals call it gun fresh— I guess it’s high crime

One end grocery and Nature's closet

Some DLrs shop here

Cox shop

We used to have a few stores here called Chism Trail, which of course was dubbed Jism Trail. They were all in sketchy neighborhoods.

Lucky’s, Pack N Save, food4less, Bashas’, New Frontiers,

Saw a place in Alaska called Pre-Garbage Can Supplies

The King Soopers at 10th and Corona, Denver was affectionately nicknamed Queen Soopers due to the Capital Hill neighborhood having a large gay population.

Pubic Foods

[quote]What kind of name is that? I'd be embarrassed to say, I'm going to Hinky Dinky's.

Is Hinkyt Dinky's any more embarrassing than Piggly Wiggly?

Red Owl. What was that about?

The Pubic Box Foodliner

In Northern Ohio we have Acme, an Akron-based chain

The name is the same but it's a completely different operation from the Philadelphia-based Acme

(The founder took a trip to Philly and literally plagiarized the name in the 1800s)

In the 1960s they launched a competitor/forerunner to Wal-Mart/Target called "Acme Click" (These were great stores but closed in the late 90s.

TRY-N-SAVE