King Kullen was founded by Michael J. Cullen, a former Kroger[2] employee who wanted to design a more modern supermarket.[citation needed] While acting as branch manager of the Herrin, Illinois, Kroger Grocery & Baking Company stores, managing 94 small stores,[3] Cullen wrote a six-page letter to John Bonham, a Kroger vice-president, proposing a new type of food store with a focus on low prices, cash sales, and without delivery services, in larger, low-rent storefronts with ample parking. He described what he envisioned as "monstrous stores, size of some to be about forty feet wide and hundred and thirty to a hundred and sixty feet deep, and they ought to be located one to three blocks off the high rent district with plenty of parking space, and some to be operated as a semi-self-service store – twenty percent service and eighty percent self-service."[3]
In his proposal, Cullen suggested that this new type of store could achieve ten times the volume and profits of the average Kroger or A&P, making Kroger "the greatest chain grocery concern on the face of the earth."
After Cullen's letter went unanswered, he resigned and moved with his wife, Nan, and their children to Long Island, to pursue the concept. Cullen leased a vacant garage at 171-06 Jamaica Avenue, on the corner of 171st Street and Jamaica Avenue in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, near a busy shopping district. The store, named "King Kullen", opened on August 4, 1930. After operating for 80 years in New York City, King Kullen left that market in 2011 with the sale of its three remaining New York City stores in Eltingville, Graniteville, and Greenridge on Staten Island.[4]
Customers reportedly came from 100 miles away to shop at the first King Kullen.[5] The first store was ten times larger than the Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company stores, for example.[6] A second store was opened a few miles away from the first, on Jamaica Avenue in Bellaire, Queens. Within two years of opening, the company operated eight stores, with sales totaling $2.9 million.[7] The early stores ranged in size, between 5200 to 6400 square feet. Within six years of opening, King Kullen had 15 locations. By 1952, King Kullen had 30 stores, then ranging in size from 10,000 to 15,000 square feet.
Cullen died at Flushing Hospital on April 24, 1936, at the age of 52, from peritonitis following an appendectomy.[8] His widow, Nan, took over King Kullen, becoming chairman of the board. She was joined by her sons, James A. Cullen (then 24) and John B. Cullen (then 15).
In 1937, King Kullen stores began providing shopping carts. In the 1950s, conveyor belts, air conditioning, automatically opening exterior doors, tile floors (easier to clean than wood), and in-store music systems were introduced. In the 1960s, King Kullen began stocking non-food items. In 1966, King Kullen purchased the nine-store Blue Jay Markets, a Suffolk County-based grocery chain. Blue Jay had been owned and operated by Frank Radau of Smithtown. In 1969, King Kullen bought the Hinsch Produce Co. In 1982, King Kullen introduced in-store bakeries.
King Kullen remains owned and operated by the Cullen family, with second-, third- and fourth-generation family members working for the company. During the 1980s, former New York City CouncilmanJack Muratori served as a King Kullen board member.[9]
In 1995, King Kullen opened Wild by Nature, an independent subsidiary. Wild by Nature is a grocery store marketed as selling wholesome, natural products. Wild by Nature has four locations (Setauket, Huntington, Hampton Bays, and Oceanside).[10]
On January 4, 2019, it was announced that Stop & Shop (a division of Ahold Delhaize) would purchase King Kullen's 32 stores and its 5 Wild by Nature stores.[11] On April 17, 2020, it was announced that the deal set to close on April 30, 2020.[12] On June 10, 2020, it was announced that the acquisition had been terminated and that King Kullen would remain independent due to "unforeseen changes in the marketplace."[13]
Locations
Exterior of a former King Kullen location in North Babylon
King Kullen currently operates 26 locations in the Nassau and Suffolk counties of Long Island.[14]
Nine King Kullen stores operate full-service pharmacy departments,[15] with online refills available.[16]
Four King Kullen locations offer online grocery shopping, with delivery and pickup.[17] King Kullen's delivery range covers much of Nassau County, many parts of Suffolk County (including Fire Island), and some neighborhoods in Queens.
King Kullen's first headquarters were established at its second store, on Jamaica Avenue in Bellaire, Queens. The offices were located in the northwest corner of the store, in a converted garage. In 1940, a combination warehouse and office was built at 178-02 Liberty Avenue, Queens (warehouse on ground level; offices on upper floor).
In 1961, King Kullen built a 95,000 square foot warehouse on Prospect Avenue in Westbury, New York, and moved the Liberty Avenue headquarters to that location. In May 2000, King Kullen moved its corporate headquarters again to a three-story building at 185 Central Avenue, Bethpage, New York. In December 2020, King Kullen moved out of its Bethpage headquarters (after selling the building to a White Plains venture-capital firm) and moved to a new, rented office in Hauppauge.
Related Research Articles
Albertsons Companies, Inc. is an American grocery company founded and headquartered in Boise, Idaho.
A supermarket is a self-service shop offering a wide variety of food, beverages and household products, organized into sections. Strictly speaking, a supermarket is larger and has a wider selection than earlier grocery stores, but is smaller and more limited in the range of merchandise than a hypermarket or big-box market. In everyday American English usage, however, "grocery store" is often casually used as a synonym for "supermarket". The supermarket retail format first appeared around 1930 in the United States as the culmination of almost two decades of retail innovations, and began to spread to other countries after extensive worldwide publicity in 1956.
The Kroger Company, or simply Kroger, is an American retail company that operates supermarkets and multi-department stores throughout the United States.
Fry's Food and Drug is a chain of American supermarkets that has a major presence in the U.S. state of Arizona. Fry's also operates under the banner of Fry's Marketplace, a hypermarket or combination of groceries and general merchandise. Fry's is a division of Kroger, an American retail company based in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Schnuck Markets, Inc., doing business as Schnucks, is a supermarket chain. Based in the St. Louis area, the company was founded in 1939 with the opening of a 1,000-square-foot (93 m2) store in north St. Louis and currently operates over 100 stores in four states throughout the Midwest. Schnucks also ran stores under the Logli Supermarkets and Hilander Foods banners. Schnucks is one of the largest privately held supermarket chains in the United States and dominates the St. Louis metro grocery market.
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.
Michael J. Cullen (1884–1936) was an American entrepreneur and salesman known as the founder of the King Kullen grocery store chain, widely considered to be the first supermarket founded in America. He is recognized by the Smithsonian Institution as the inventor of the modern supermarket.
Harris Teeter Supermarkets, LLC., also known as Harris Teeter Neighborhood Food & Pharmacy, is an American supermarket chain based in Matthews, North Carolina, a suburb of Charlotte. As of November 2024, the chain operates 262 stores in seven South Atlantic states and Washington, D.C. Supermarket News ranked Harris Teeter No. 34 in the 2012 "Top 75 Retailers & Wholesalers" based on 2011 fiscal year sales of $4.3 billion.
The Stop & Shop Supermarket Company, known as Stop & Shop, is an American regional chain of supermarkets located in the northeastern United States. From its beginnings in 1892 as a small grocery store, it has grown to include 406 stores chain-wide.
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).
Giant Eagle, Inc. is an American supermarket chain with stores in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana, and Maryland. The company was founded in 1918 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and incorporated on August 31, 1931. Supermarket News ranked Giant Eagle 21st on the "Top 75 North American Food Retailers" based on sales of $11 billion. In 2021, it was the 36th-largest privately held company, as determined by Forbes. Based on 2005 revenue, Giant Eagle is the 49th-largest retailer in the United States. As of summer 2014, the company had approximately $9.9 billion in annual sales. As of fall 2023, Giant Eagle, Inc. had 496 stores across the portfolio: 211 supermarkets 8 standalone pharmacies, 274 fuel station/convenience stores under the GetGo banner, and three standalone car wash under the WetGo banner. The company is headquartered in an office park in Cranberry Township, PA in Butler County.
Big Bear Stores was an American regional supermarket chain operating in the U.S. states of Ohio and West Virginia between 1933 and 2004. The company was founded in Columbus, Ohio, and was headquartered there until its acquisition by Syracuse, New York–based Penn Traffic in 1989. Upon Penn Traffic's bankruptcy in 2004, all remaining Big Bear Stores closed.
Dillons is a regional grocery supermarket chain based in Hutchinson, Kansas, and is a division of Kroger. Other banners under the Dillon Stores Division include Gerbes in Missouri and Baker's in Omaha, Nebraska. Dillons operates grocery stores throughout Kansas with major influences in and around Wichita, Topeka, Manhattan, and Lawrence. Dillons also operates distribution centers in Goddard and Hutchinson.
Waldbaum's was a supermarket chain with stores in the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx; and in Nassau, Suffolk counties and Upstate New York. The chain also for a time operated stores in New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. Founded in 1904, Waldbaum's was one of seven "banner store chains" owned and operated by The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P), which acquired the chain from its founding family in 1986.
Marsh Supermarkets was an American retail food chain headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, with a peak number of 86 stores in 2013 located throughout central Indiana and parts of western Ohio. Its eventual parent company was Sun Capital Partners, headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida.
King Soopers is an American supermarket chain located in the Rocky Mountains of the United States. It started as its own brand, and is now a subsidiary of Kroger. It is headquartered in Denver, Colorado.
Scott's Food & Pharmacy was a supermarket chain in the Fort Wayne, Indiana, market. The company was once a wholly owned subsidiary of SuperValu, but was acquired by The Kroger Co. in 2007. At the time of its purchase by Kroger, the chain had 18 locations. By late 2014, that number had dwindled to one location as a result of stores being closed or rebranded under the Kroger banner. However, the company shut down in 2016, due to the final store rebranding to Kroger.
Fairway Market is an American grocery chain founded in 1933 by Nathan Glickberg. It is one of the brands owned by the Wakefern Food Corporation, whose flagship supermarket cooperative network is ShopRite.
Gerrity's Supermarkets is a privately held chain of grocery stores located in Pennsylvania, United States. The company is run by President and CEO Joyce A. Fasula, along with her son, Joseph F. Fasula. They were part of ShurSave's retail cooperative. In August 2022, the chain joined Wakefern Food Corporation's cooperative under The Fresh Grocer banner. Gerrity's Supermarkets is currently operating ten locations, including its 2021 acquisition of Valley Farm Market in Bethlehem.
Best Market was a family-owned, regional supermarket chain with 30 stores in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey. The company was headquartered in Bethpage, New York, and had been owned by the Raitses family since the company's first store opened in Lake Ronkonkoma, New York, in 1994.
↑ "In the Beginning, King Kullen," The New York Times, May 4, 1980. Cullen had been managing the Herrin, Illinois branch of the Kroger Grocery and Baking Company.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
US$ 800 million (2006)[ needs update ]
