American grocery store chains

Fuck Food Lion!

Harris Teeter was something special until the Kroger people bought it. Food Lion is trash.

Really wish we had an Aldi within driving distance. I've visited a few on vacation in another state and would really love it if it was near me.

Don't get me started on Wegman's.

Our grocery chains are acceptable, at best.

Bohacks, A&P

Food lion is like a Kroger Outlet store

I agree with R3, I’d love to have an Aldi nearby.

We're just naming groceries, r4?

Publix

R4 is still shopping in the 70s

Not you, R7.

I went to Vons.

Ralphs today - I like it better than Vons, which can be hit or miss.

Otherwise, I'm an ALDI guy for essentials.

In the 90s there used to be a rogue former Vons renamed Jons somewhere east of Hollywood.

Vons>Pavilions>Safeway.

Pretty well not great these days in my area, and have a problem with items ringing up more than the shelf price.

I would go to Lucky before Safeway. Cheaper and not trying to fuck people around.

I tend to spend my dollars on local markets nearest to me, so neither Safeway nor Lucky are my go-to for groceries.

Jons are still around, r13.

Piggly Wiggly please!

I still can't believe there's an American grocery store chain called Piggly-Wiggly.

When Fannie Flagg mentioned it in Fried Green Tomatoes I thought it was a joke.

That's where you get your chitlins!

Don't forget Hinky Dinky...

And spend decades purchasing canned vegetables unless you want fresh potatoes for baking.

Today was my grocery shopping day.

First went to Ralphs for my majority of my shopping. Ralphs is my go-to grocery store.

After that, I stopped at Pavilions (an upscale version of Vons) for a couple of things only carried there. Luckily both were in stock. YEAH.

Later I stopped at Sprouts just because I was driving by it. Figured I'd see what they had on sale.

Finally stopped at Whole Foods to see if any of the handful of items I buy there were on sale. Two were, so I bought them. My Amazon prime membership got me a further 10% discount on those sale items.

Food Circus

Pussy’s

Schnucks is the BEST name for a grocery store!

I live in the rural South, so, unless I decide to drive 20 miles to get groceries, my options are limited to the following,

Food Lion

Family Foods, good meat department, but, a friend's teenage daughter worked there, the management treated her like dirt.

Dollar General, four of them in the tiny county where I live.

Mom & Pop type stores, fun to shop in, they also tend to good meat departments.

I'd rather die than even be in a Food Lion parking lot, OP.

R26, I’m in a similar boat. 60 miles one way to a very over-priced Vons. 78 miles one way to a Walmart or Albertsons or Stater Brothers.

Publix's slogan is "where shopping is a pleasure". But as an introvert I don't find it a pleasure to shop there. Their overly chatty cashiers make Trader Joe's cashiers seem introverted.

Not all their stores have self-checkout but even the ones that do, the attendants at self-checkout will come over and comment on your purchase, "oh I haven't seen that flavor of ice cream, is it new? Is it good". If I wanted to chat I would have gone to one of the many open regular checkouts!

You don't have to make eye contact with Publix employees or even be facing them for them to go out of their way to greet you. They will come up behind you or even crouch down to say "hello". I don't find this friendly; I find it very odd. They've even startled me a couple of times when they've surprise greeted me from behind (cue surprise anal jokes...). They really take it to the extreme there.

In conclusion: If we haven't made eye contact and I'm not facing you and I don't even know you are behind me, there is no reason to greet me. Also, if I'm using self-checkout, I don't want to chat about my purchases or anything.

NJ here.

Shop Rite, Kings and Stop & Shop are our big 3.

I’ve got all 3 within 5 miles but I tend to choose Shop Rite 99% of the time.

R28, although I’ve never been to a Publix, I would hate it. I hate what you’ve described. In fact, I think there should be a rule that no cashier ever comments on what a customer is buying.

r29 Shop Rite? I'd call it Shop Rong.

But I call The Real Canadian Superstore The StupidStore.

Connecticut here - What I find odd is that it really depends on the neighborhood the supermarket is in, Most Stop and Shops are totally ghetto, but if it's in a nice area, the same supermarket gets a huge upgrade. Same with Shop Rite. And if you really want to be totally triggered you should try shopping at a Stew Leonards - The avocado song is still lodged in my brain!

I went to a Food Lion outlet store. It’s like scraping the very bottom of grocery barrel

Publix is Pubic!

Kuntz

Harris Teets

Market Basket in New England only. Cheaper than the rest.

Food Lion now has an outlet store?

What do they carry? Expired meats and rotting fruit? Dented canned goods. Cereal boxes that have been cut open? Moldy bread?

No one, yet, has mentioned Giant. That's where I went when I lived in DC. At the time, they had a pretty good selection of Entenmann's. Also the meat department did not smell good.

I like Stater Bros. They have a good, general selection of items at the one where I shop. My other favorite is Super H Mart. If you've not heard of Super H Mart, it's a huge asian grocery with many hard to find asian products, a fresh seafood counter where you can select your fish and they will clean it for you, live tanks of abalone, etc. Their produce dept. is amazing.

In Connecticut, if you don't want to deal with the EBT crowd, any Big Y is your best option. They price out the riffraff.

NYer here - grew up with A&P supermarkets, then Pathmark came into town and started shopping there. In the last 15 years I'd been a Stop & Shop person until the one located 2 blocks from my house closed. I now do 90% of my grocery shopping from Amazon Fresh.

Occasionally I would take a side trip to the Fairway Market near the river when the mood struck. That store was considered fancy because they had a big cheese counter, lots of aged beef and exotic (for me) seafood, like sea bass. The Fairway is gone now - bankruptcy a few years ago.

That's a very Connecticut reply, R41. Very Connecticut.

Well then go get your groceries at the dollar store R43

R40 The Statler Bros were a country band

I’m telling you I was at a Food Lion outlet store! I was in a state of disbelief as I walked through the isles.

We have Meijer, it's a store like Walmart but a bit classier

I don't take advice from pissed off Nutmeggers with no sense of humor, R44.

that's fine. I wouldn't give any.

Listen to me. I shopped at Food Towne in August!

I remember when Food Lion came to Texas back in the 1990s. I lived in a suburb of Dallas and they built a brand new store between two other large full-service grocery stores. It never took off and after an ABC Primetime special aired showing hidden camera footage of unsanity food handling, redating expired products and the use of bleach and marinades to mask bad smelling meats, they never recovered and eventually closed all of their stores in the state. Today, that former Food Lion is a church.

I'm afraid to ask what's in a Food Lion Outlet Store

R46, were you using a raft in lieu of a shopping cart?

I grew up near Philly — shopping at Pathmark and Acme. Is Genuardi’s still around? I thought Genuardi’s were a real step up in the 1990s.

Oh, and there was SuperFresh, the freshest way to save.

In Louisiana, we have Rouses. Horrible store, smells terrible. Their prices are outrageous, the quality is low. It is very far from a high-quality grocery store.

R13 Jons is a chain, still very much in business.

When I am visiting my family back home, I shop aGiant Eagle, a former Fisher-Fazio location. And Buehler's.

Here I do my weekly at Ralphs (part of the Kroger Empire). I avoid chain stores for meat; I go to a small carnicería/meat market.

Jons is Armenian

No one's mentioned Amazon Fresh, which is understandable since it's kind of a trainwreck.

Give me my Gelson's, Whole Foods, Sprouts, and Trader Joe's any day of the week.

Give me liberty or give me Food Lion Outlet

Today I fucked at ACME and Krogers

R17 Piggy Wigglys are huge in the South. California has the most grocery store chains I ever seen in my life.

I shop exclusively at Food Fuckers

H-E-B in Texas

Hyvee

HIV Market Basket

[quote]California has the most grocery store chains I ever seen in my life.

A lot of them are connected:

Vons-Pavilions-Albertson-Safeway

Ralphs-Food4Less

SaveMart-Lucky

Stater Bros

Gelson's

Amazon Fresh-Whole Foods

Bristol Farms-Lazy Acres

Sprouts

And of course Walmart, Target, Trader Joe's, Costco, Sam's Club, Aldi

And LOTS of Hispanic and Asian chains (and independent markets)

R68 I did know that Vons and Albertsons were the same. I didn’t know they were connected to Safeway which is on the east coast.

r69 In the late 1980s, Safeway sold all its stores in the Southwest to Vons, which later rebranded them as Vons. The rest of the Safeway stores in the US were unaffected by this sale.

Then in the late 1990s, Safeway obtained a controlling interest in Vons, and the Vons chain became a subsidiary of Safeway. however, they retained the Vons names.

In 2014, Cerberus Capital Management, which owns the Albertsons grocery chian, purchased Safeway. So, now all the Vons, Albertsons and Safeway stores are owned by the same company. But they've all kept their individual store names.

But now Kroger is trying to merge with Albertsons, but the FTC is trying to stop the merger, saying it would result in higher prices and less competition.

Most people don’t realize it but Piggly Wiggly was the first modern grocery store. Before they opened in the run up to WWI, there were no such things as shopping carts or grocery aisles. A shopper would go into a grocery, hand the clerk a list, which the clerk would fill from shelves behind the counter.

Along with the department store, and mail-order, Piggly Wiggly transformed how America and the world shopped forever.

Piggly Wiggly’s are vanishingly rare in most of the South these days but in 1921 there were seven in Raleigh, population 25,000, alone.

Wisconsin's unique grocery is Woodmans. They're huge, cheap, and employee owned. They have an incredible liquor department. They have started expanding into Illinois. Wisconsin also has dozens of Piggly Wiggly stores, for whatever reason.

pw actually has been upgrading stores and is not cheap despite the name.

fl will harris teeter-fy a store in a wealthy area.

I’m Jewel-Osco. I’m not the most expensive, but far from the cheapest. My appearance and selection haven’t changed in years, so boomers love me.

Vons is such a snotty store. When it was announced that one of their stores in Henderson NV was on the Piggly Wiggly conversion list I laughed and thought that those Karens in Henderson would rather shop at Whole Foods.

Jewel, we love you but not your baked goods or deli counter. Your grreatest virtue is having fresh, local produce.I

R59 is absolutely right. I was excited when one opened, only to find every kind of shopping frustration imaginable. I once had food from the hot bar, but they couldn’t accept electronic payment and I had no cash. I left it for the cashier. They are always understaffed. An employee once glared me into bagging my items. Bagging is no big deal, but she was helping everyone else. Maybe it was the Wegman’s bag.

Apparently Piggy Wiggly is the originator of many of the common features of the supermarket. I find it rather ironic because Eastcoast northerners have been mocking it for decades lol.

R71 Have all the Piggly Wigglys in the south been replaced by Walmarts? I remember them being huge going to my family reunions in the south growing up.

I've never been to HEB, but Texans seem to love it. Apparently, it's an experience.

You whores are going to make fun of me, but when I'm traveling, I love to visit grocery stores in other cities just to see what they're like.

R80 why would that deserve ridicule?

Shop the Pig!

r69 Safeway is a west coast company; they acquired other chains in the DC-VA-MD area at one point in their history; that accounts for their presence in that area. Most of their stores are in the west. And as pointed out, it's now owned by Albertsons.

a pig wig tee is a bit iconic.

R79, Piggly Wiggly stores were already disappearing before Walmart became ubiquitous around here. The globalization of the food chain, the consolidation of small local chains as well as major food brands, and the constant narrowing of the margins in the grocery business started killing them off in the early 80s.

Piggly Wiggly was not a corporate chain of grocery stores but rather a consortium of independent operators much like IGA and McDonald’s franchisees. They carried the same house-branded products, shared distribution networks, and advertised collectively but each independently set their own prices and on the store level of the business, they couldn’t take advantage of efficiencies of scale like the corporate-owned stores.

As the grocery business became less about knowing and serving the your immediate area well and more about loyalty cards and the lowest absolute price, the family businesses couldn’t compete.

By 2000 there were only two or three left in my area of North Carolina. The last one in Raleigh, at 5 Points, the business and service hub for the Hayes Barton and Country Club Hills neighborhoods, the richest part of town since WWII

It was able to survive because they could charge premium prices based ostensibly on location and service, but really on nostalgia. So far as I know, they still offered grocery delivery long before that become common again and many people over 40 continued to shop there simply because the Piggly Wiggly was where their type of people shopped.

When the store finally closed, around 2001 or so, the fear that it would be torn down to build something ugly combined with the nostalgia for “Old Raleigh” was so great that a well-born, local restaurateur in the vein of Ina Garten bought it and opened a restaurant, deli, and gift shop in the newly renovated space called NOFO at the Pig. It was hugely successful at the time and I believe continues to pack them in, at least on weekends.

[quote] After that, I stopped at Pavilions (an upscale version of Vons) for a couple of things only carried there.

I've never understood the distinction corporate was trying to make between Vons and Pavilions (both Safeway). That's probably why they ended up converting so many Pavilions back to being Vons, and they didn't need to change anything other than the sign outside and the name on the shopping carts. The only noticeable difference was that Pavilions had a bigger liquor and wine department -- for awhile. Even that remained the same size in the former Pavilions that converted back to a Vons near me. Then, there's the Albertsons near me (also Safeway), and their liquor and wine department is even bigger, so big that they have a bar and stools set up in the middle of it where they have someone come in and talk about wine and spirits, etc. sometimes. And the weekly ad for Vons and Albertsons is the exact same.

R80, you are not alone.

Our Pavilions rebranded as Vons a couple years ago; only the signage changed. Including this Vons, there are six Vons in Long Beach, three Albertsons, and five Ralphs. If Kroger succeeds in acquiring Albertsons, it will control well over half the full service supermarkets here. There are three Sprouts and two Stater Bros, so 13-5 in favor of Kroger.

Sure, we have Trader Joe’s, Amazon Fresh/Whole Foods, and Grocery Outlet Bargain Markets, but none of them is a full service market. I used to treasure my weekly marketing, but I now just hate having to get groceries.

R85 ohhh. Gotcha. That’s where I would see them in North Carolina, 90s, early 2000s. But I thought they were much bigger regionally because over the years I’ve heard people talk about them from other southern states.

I miss Jitney Jungle….

What did that even MEAN?

I shop at Fister's!

R88 Fuck Kroger's since they closed the Ralph's in LB - miserable cheap cunts

For r91

r88 Some of those stores are on the divest list and will go to C&S if the merger is approved. And guess what other chain C&S operates -- PIGGLY WIGGLY!

R51 Oh my. I hope some people went to prison for that.

R94. All those people are dead...

The Pavillions in West Hollywood is one of the busiest and most profitable stores that Albertsons has. It is also on the list of stores they will divest if the Kroger-Albertsons merger goes through.

C&S is not an upscale chain. Replacing the upscale Pavillions with C&S is not an equal trade. The customers will definitely suffer.

Also remember when Albertsons acquired Vons/Safeway a decade ago, Albertsons sold off many of its stores, espeically in locations where there was a Vons nearby. They sold the stores to the Haggen grocery chain, which was based in the Seattle area. The converted Haggen stores were poorly received and about six months after converting them, Haggen closed its converted California locations. Shortly after than Haggen filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

I hate it when the toilets stink into the produce section.

R98 deserves a visit to Food Lion Outlet for acting persnickety

R85 what are you on about? Piggly Wiggly is a big chain in 2024 in a couple of southern states.

R80 I’m that way too. Avoid Food Lion Outlets

Harris Teeter is ok

I’ve fallen in love with Grocery Outlet. You never know what they’re going to have or not have, so it isn’t the best for all of your shopping, but it’s a really fun adventure.

Top search result for “food lion outlet”

I went to a big outlet mall a mid-Atlantic state. They had all of the outlets of big store brands. Then right dab in the middle was Food Lion Outlet. I’m like WTF. Is it left over or expired groceries? I went in and found a small entry level Food Lion store with no fresh food except for black bananas lining the produce shelves. I was so fucking mad. I’m like this is an abomination to food liners all over the US!

R93 Yeah, Kroger closed the Ralphs on Los Coyotes, which was my store for 20 years. At the same time, they closed the Foor4Less on South St. They blamed the new union contract. I shopped the Stater Bros. on Spring St. for a while after that, but went back to Ralphs (Cherry/Carson) because Stater Bros. has such a ghetto clientele.

R74 Jewel-Osco brings back memories. In the early 1990s, our closest grocery store in town was Skaggs, then Skaggs was rebranded Jewel-Osco for a brief period before being rebranded as Albertsons, which they stuck with. Same store, pretty much the same products, but wishy-washy on what to call it.

Jewel was one of my first memories of Chicago. It's pretty much the most expensive store there now. Mariano's is cheaper but the quality did a nosedive once Kroger took over.

We used to trek out to the hinterlands to shop Woodman's.

Giant Eagle is an unremarkable store but always ridiculously expensive. And in some of the most economically challenged areas of the Rust Belt, too.

Always tried to avoid shopping it back in the day. Would wait for a chance to go to Shop n Save or Foodland.

R101 It appears you are right. It’s website has over a dozen states listed and over 500 locations. Never trust a Datalounger for shit you have seen with your very own eyes or heard from other people. I was shocked to see the state of New York listed.

One thing I love about California grocery stores is that you can buy liquor from them.

WF is pricier than Jewel. It's a shame what happened to Mariano's

Which was the one where the puny cocklet troll said he was raped in the parking lot by his lawyer? I seem to remember humiliating songs and degrading dances were (compulsorily) involved.

Yall memba Pathmark? Brooklyn stand up.

If ya from Boston, theyyah's nothin' quite like STAHH MAHHKET!

R115 "Yall memba..." Just staring in stunned silence.

R117 who is that?

R115 & R 116 are proof of the vernacular diversity present in America's Northeast Megalopolis.

R115 & R116

Sendik’s!

And definitely Brown Bag Sendik’s over Red Bag Sendik’s.

Treasure Island in Chicago. It wasn’t a large chain by any stretch, and was sort of like Trader Joe’s in that they carried unique items. Closed up shop a few years ago.

That's sad! I loved the T.I. in Old Town.

Any Atlantans shop at the Murder Kroger?

Murder Kroger used to be my home store! Never saw anything worse than a used rubber in the parking lot though.

I think I went to the Murder Kroger once for a driver's license renewal. Late '90s.

I heard about the Murder Kroger when I visited.

There's also the UnSafeway in Denver.

[quote]if you really want to be totally triggered you should try shopping at a Stew Leonards

Stew's is great. Now I'm hungry.

I shop at better Schnucks stores - the flagship store in West County - St Louis and in Edwardsville, IL.

I’m a fool for a full-service food liner.

King Soopers anyone?

Cash Wise?

Fry’s

Acme?

Giant?

Dillons?

Foodland (HI)

[Quote] Piggly Wiggly’s are vanishingly rare in most of the South these days

R71 That isn’t true.

You need to open your eyes and shop the Pig. 🐖

Chinese groceries for produce, noodles and specialty sauces . Italian bakeries for baked goods, arancini, sauce and grandmother pizza. Middle Eastern groceries for tzatzik, tabouleh, falafel , spinach feta pastries; Jewish delis for pastrami, corned beef, salads, knishes, bagels, challah, black and white cookies, babka; Vietnamese bakeries for wonderful baguettes.pastries and croissants; Polish delis for pierogis, soups, stufffed cabbage. German delis for sausages and cured meats.

I know these are not supermarkets and not available to everyone. I hit maybe one or two a week and freeze what I buy if I can.

Aldi for detergent, staples like jugs of white vinegar, organic produce, cheese and bronze cut pasta.

Wild Fork for bargains in wild-caught salmon and shrimp.

Costco for Cheeries, coffee, eggs, organic blueberries, paper goods, cleaning supplies.

WF for almost everything else, i.e. some organic produce, all meat and poultry, 365 house brand, bread goods..

Costco is also great for tuna.

i secretly do want a piggly wiggly tee.

Here you go R136

there's one aroun' da corna.' but then ya,' bud.

R108, in the 80s in the Philly area we had a Jewel-T that was a deeply discounted store with scratch and dent items, etc. no bags, you boxed your items yourself (sort of like Aldi) — I guess it was an off-shoot of Jewel-Osco. My parents used to tell me that when they were kids Jewel/Jewel-T operated out of a truck that came through neighborhoods.

We’re Food Lion and the call of the wild is in our hungry eyes. These are the times we must fight to keep our dreams alive.

We

Are

Food

Lion

Railroad Salvage

Foody's. We a place with food...and heaaaart!

Shop at FOOD LION

Jewel Tea was Jewel's name originally. A&P was the Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company. National was the National Tea Company.

Apart from the barely-mentioned references at R3 and R77, I can't believe this thread got to 144 posts without any real comments on Wegmans. I'm a Californian, have never set foot in one, but I know Wegmans has a devoted fan base throughout the east coast. Are there really no DLers who have a point of view on Wegmans? Any Manhattan DLers who shop at the Wegmans that opened in the former Kmart spot at Astor Place?

Has anyone above mentioned WINCO? It's a no-frills mega grocery store, where you do your own bagging found mainly in the western states with a couple in north Texas It has a very fully stocked section of grains, nuts, pastas, dried fruit, all in self-serve bins, and a huge selection of meats, including specialty meats (for instance, goat meat). It's about 15% cheaper than the local grocery stores with more frills. Produce is usually pretty good. The stores are popular, so there is a fast turnover of fresh items.

I'm also a fan of Grocery Outlet. Definitely a store where you feel that some items are there because they fell off a truck somewhere. As mentioned above, you would never go there if you just had to have certain items that would be standard in a regular grocery store. But, for instance, I first encountered labneh. (Middle Eastern yogurt cheese) in a grocery outlet. I loved it. Of course next time I went to look for it, it was gone, never to return. I had to go to a Middle Eastern specialty market to find it again.

I loved Harris Teeter when they were in Atlanta. But Kroger and Publix ran them out. I prefer Publix over Kroger by far. They're more expensive but their stores are much more well run.

Winco doesn't take credit cards, which makes it an automatic NO for me. I mean even ALDI takes credit cards. I want my discounts and/or points.