This article relies largely or entirely on a single source .(November 2019) |
Company type | Subsidiary of American Stores |
---|---|
Industry | Retail |
Founded | 1915 |
Defunct | 1995 |
Fate | Merged with Ralphs |
Successor | Ralphs |
Products | supermarkets/food-drug stores |
Parent | American Stores |
Alpha Beta was a chain of supermarkets in the Southwestern United States. Stores under this brand existed between 1917 and 1995. Former Alpha Beta stores have all been purchased by other grocery chains and rebranded.
Before Alpha Beta was the name of a store, it was the name of a marketing concept used in grocery stores founded by Albert and Hugh Gerrard. It referred to organizing the groceries in the store in alphabetical order. The Gerrards applied this idea to their flagship grocery store, Triangle Grocerteria, in 1915.
Then in 1917, they opened the first Alpha Beta store in Pomona, in eastern Los Angeles County, California. The company also launched a series of coffee shops named Alphy's (a knockoff of the more formal Alpha Beta name) with dozens around southern California. [1] They were eventually sold; many became Denny's.
The company was bought by American Stores in 1961. Skaggs Drug Centers bought American Stores in 1979 and assumed the American Stores name. Combined food and drug stores in Alpha Beta territory were re-branded as Skaggs Alpha Beta. In 1984, American Stores bought The Jewel Companies, Inc., which had owned Osco Drug since 1961.
In 1984, all 34 Alpha Beta stores in Arizona were sold to ABCO Foods, and the stores continued operating under the Alpha Beta name. [2] In Tucson, Alpha Beta-branded stores changed to ABCO-branded stores around 1989.
Some Alpha Beta stores carried more than the customary supermarket merchandise. For example, in 1980, a Cupertino, California, Alpha Beta store sold Bohsei color TVs for under $200 (~$740.00 in 2023), Atari 400 and 800 computers, and other goods.
In September 1991, Skaggs-Alpha Beta re-branded its 76 stores in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arkansas as Jewel-Osco, in an attempt to unify some of its subsidiaries under one nationally recognized name. Months later, Albertsons bought some of the Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas stores.
In 1994, Yucaipa Companies, then owner of the Alpha Beta chain in southern California, purchased the Ralphs Grocery Company. All existing Alpha Beta stores in Southern California were rebranded as Ralphs or Food 4 Less, [3] and the Alpha Beta name ceased to be used by September 1995.
Alpha Beta stores in Northern California and San Diego County were taken over and rebranded by Lucky Stores, which in turn was acquired by Albertsons, triggering another rebranding. Many of the Northern California stores were subsequently sold in 2006 to Save Mart Supermarkets, which had acquired the rights to use the Lucky brand and logo from Albertsons, so many of the stores eventually were rebranded as Lucky.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Alan Hamel was the television spokesman for the Alpha Beta grocery stores in California. Although the chain used various slogans such as "You Can't Lose" and "The Savings Don't Stop", every commercial featuring Hamel ended with him saying to the audience "tell a friend". Popeye was in the Alpha Beta grocery store commercial with Mickey Mouse in the 80s featuring the end of the Alpha Beta commercial with Mickey Mouse saying next to Popeye to the audience "tell a friend".[ citation needed ] Olive Oyl's voiceover ended up saying "Go shopping with Popeye at Alpha Beta" and "Tell A Friend" at the end of the Alpha Beta commercial in the 80s.[ citation needed ] Bugs Bunny, Donald Duck, and Hulk Hogan were in the commercial of Alpha Beta grocery store in the 90s featuring Hulk Hogan ended up saying "Either you're at Alpha Beta or you're not" next to Bugs Bunny.[ citation needed ] In the 90s, Looney Tunes were in the commercial of Alpha Beta grocery store commercial and Daffy Duck ended up saying "Join Looney Tunes at Alpha Beta", "Either you're at Alpha Beta or you're not", and "Tell A Friend".[ citation needed ]
Albertsons Companies, Inc. is an American grocery company founded and headquartered in Boise, Idaho.
Jewel-Osco is a regional supermarket chain in the Chicago metropolitan area, headquartered in Itasca, a western suburb. In 2007, the company had 188 stores across northern, central, and western Illinois; eastern Iowa; and portions of northwest Indiana. Jewel-Osco has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Boise-based Albertsons since 1999. The company originally started as a door-to-door coffee delivery service before it expanded into delivering non-perishable groceries and later into grocery stores, and supermarkets. Prior to its 1984 acquisition by American Stores, Jewel evolved into a large multi-state holding company that operated several supermarket chains and other non-food retail chain stores located from coast to coast and had operated under several different brand names.
Osco Drug and Sav-on Drugs were the names of a pair of chain pharmacies that operated in the United States. Osco Drug was founded by the Skaggs family. Alpha Beta grocery store was purchased by American Stores in 1961. Skaggs Drug Centers bought American Stores in 1979 and assumed the American Stores name. Sav-on Drugs was a California-based pharmacy chain that was acquired by Osco's parent company in 1980. Both Osco and Sav-on stores eventually came under the ownership of American Stores, then Albertsons, and finally SuperValu before the stores were sold off.
Ralphs is an American supermarket chain in Southern California. The largest subsidiary of Cincinnati-based Kroger, it is the oldest such chain west of the Mississippi River. Kroger also operates stores under the Food 4 Less and Foods Co. names in California.
Acme Markets Inc. is a supermarket chain operating 161 stores throughout Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, the Hudson Valley of New York, and Pennsylvania and, as of 1998, is a subsidiary of Albertsons, and part of its presence in the Northeast. It is headquartered in East Whiteland Township, Pennsylvania, near Malvern, a Philadelphia suburb.
Safeway, Inc. is an American supermarket chain. The chain provides grocery items, food and general merchandise and a variety of specialty departments, such as bakery, delicatessen, floral and pharmacy, as well as Starbucks coffee shops and fuel centers. It is a subsidiary of Albertsons after being acquired by private equity investors led by Cerberus Capital Management in January 2015. Safeway's primary base of operations is in the Western United States with some stores located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the Eastern Seaboard. The subsidiary is headquartered in Pleasanton, California.
SuperValu, Inc., was an American wholesaler and retailer of grocery products. The company, formerly headquartered in the Minneapolis suburb of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, had been in business since 1926. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of United Natural Foods (UNFI).
Shaw's and Star Market are two American supermarket chains under united management based in West Bridgewater, Massachusetts, employing about 30,000 associates in 150 total stores; 129 stores are operated under the Shaw's banner in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont, while Star Market operates 21 stores in Massachusetts, most of which are in or near Boston. Until 2010, Shaw's operated stores in all six New England states, and as of 2021 Shaw's remained the only supermarket chain with stores in five of the six, after it sold its Connecticut operations. The chain's largest competitors are Hannaford, Market Basket, Price Chopper, Roche Bros., Wegmans, and Stop & Shop. Star Market is a companion store to Shaw's, Shaw's having purchased the competing chain in 1999.
Vons is a supermarket chain owned by Albertsons, with most of its locations in Southern California and the Las Vegas Valley. It is headquartered in Fullerton, California, and operates stores under the Vons and Pavilions banners. It was owned by Safeway Inc. and headquartered in Arcadia, California, before that company was acquired by and folded into Albertsons along with all of their subsidiaries, including Vons.
Lucky Stores was an American supermarket chain founded in San Leandro, California, that operated from 1935 until 1999. The Lucky brand was revived in 2007 and is now operated as two separate and distinct chains by Albertsons in Utah as Lucky and Save Mart Supermarkets in Northern California as Lucky California.
Super Saver Foods was an American price-impact grocery franchise. It was owned by Albertsons LLC. It was a no-frills grocery store where the customers bagged their own groceries at the checkout.
The Skaggs Family, starting from a small frontier town in southern Idaho, came to have an important impact on merchandising across much of the United States. During most of the 20th century, the Skaggs name was prominent on hundreds of stores throughout the West and Midwest.
Skaggs Companies was the predecessor to many famous United States retailing chains, including Safeway, Albertsons, Osco Drug, and Longs Drugs. The company owned several drugstore chains, but all of them were sold. Skaggs Cos. became American Stores in 1979.
American Stores Company was an American public corporation and a holding company which ran chains of supermarkets and drugstores in the United States from 1917 through 1998. The company was incorporated in 1917 when The Acme Tea Company merged with four small Philadelphia-area grocery stores (Childs, George Dunlap, Bell Company, and A House That Quality Built) to form American Stores. In the following eight decades, the company would expand to 1,575 food and drugstores in 38 states with $20 billion in annual sales in 1998.
Dominick's was a Chicago-area grocery store chain and subsidiary of Safeway Inc. Dominick's distribution center was located in Northlake, Illinois, while its management offices were located in Oak Brook, Illinois.
Star Market is a New England chain of supermarkets based in Greater Boston. It was owned by the Mugar family and started in 1915. The company was sold to The Jewel Companies, Inc. in 1964 and later to Investcorp, which in turn sold the chain to Shaw's Supermarkets. As stores were remodeled, many adopted the Shaw's name, leaving only a handful of Star Market stores operating by the late 2000s. In 2008, Shaw's began to revive the name, a trend which was expedited after the parent company of both chains was sold to Cerberus Capital Management. Today, both Shaw's and Star Market are administered as a single division.
Buttrey Food & Drug was a chain of grocery stores founded in Havre, Montana, and formerly headquartered in Great Falls, Montana. The company was founded in 1896 as a chain of department stores branded Buttrey Department Store. The company opened grocery stores in 1935 and sold off its department store division following a 1966 acquisition by The Jewel Companies, Inc. Jewel was sold to American Stores in 1984, and later Buttrey was sold off as a separate company in 1990. The company was sold to its main competitor, Boise, Idaho–based Albertsons, in January 1998 and the Buttrey name was retired. At that time, Buttrey was operating 43 stores in Montana, Wyoming, and North Dakota with a revenue of US$391.4 million.
ABCO Foods was a chain of grocery stores in Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona for over 15 years, formed from a 1984 spin-off sale by the Alpha Beta division of American Stores. The Arizona regional management secured private financing to purchase the Arizona stores. Part of the sale agreement included a 5-year term to continue the use of the Alpha Beta brand in Arizona.
Market Basket was the name used by two separate chains of supermarkets within Southern California. The first chain originated in Pasadena and operated from 1930 until 1982. The second chain operated from 1989 until 1994.