H Williams (supermarket)

Last updated

H Williams was a supermarket chain in Ireland founded as a grocer in the late 19th century.[ citation needed ]

In 1959 it opened the first supermarket in Ireland, in Dublin's Henry Street. [1] Though publicly listed on the Dublin Stock Exchange for many years, the Quinn-McArdle family controlled its board and provided most of its senior management. [2] In the early 1980s it was sold to a its managing director, John Quinn, and property developer Finbarr Holland.

H Williams collapsed in 1987, following a price war that led to the 1987 amendment to the Groceries Order in an effort to protect the market from further concentration. [3] The former H Williams supermarkets were sold to other supermarket chains. H Williams' head office was situated in Dundrum, Dublin.

Other Dublin stores included ones located in Rathmines, Terenure, Tallaght (now a Lidl) and Killester. Outside Dublin, there was a store in Mullingar [4] – the present-day Fairgreen Shopping Centre is located on its former site as well as a store in Tullamore which was purchased by and still operates as a Dunnes Stores.

Related Research Articles

Safeway Limited is a British groceries brand, and former chain of supermarkets and convenience shops. The British Safeway was founded in 1962 by the American Safeway Inc., before being sold to Argyll Foods in 1987. It was later listed on the London Stock Exchange. It was purchased by Morrisons in March 2004. Most of its 479 shops were rebranded as Morrisons, with others being sold. Safeway-branded shops disappeared from the United Kingdom on 24 November 2005.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grocery store</span> Retail store that primarily sells food and other household supplies

A grocery store (AE), grocery shop (BE) or simply grocery is a foodservice retail store that primarily retails a general range of food products, which may be fresh or packaged. In everyday U.S. usage, however, "grocery store" is a synonym for supermarket, and is not used to refer to other types of stores that sell groceries. In the UK, shops that sell food are distinguished as grocers or grocery shops (though in everyday use, people usually use either the term "supermarket" or a "corner shop".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Save-A-Lot</span> American retail and grocery company

Save A Lot Food Stores Ltd. is an American discount supermarket chain store headquartered in St. Ann, Missouri, in Greater St. Louis. It has about 900 independently owned and operated stores across 32 states in the United States with over $4 billion in annual sales.

Tesco Ireland Limited is the Irish subsidiary of supermarket group Tesco. Tesco Ireland was formed by Tesco plc's 1997 purchase of the Irish retailing operations of Associated British Foods, namely Powers' Supermarkets Limited and its subsidiaries, trading as "Quinnsworth" and "Crazy Prices". There are 152 Tesco stores in operation in Ireland as of August 2018. Tesco had approximately 21% of the Irish grocery market in 2019 and its main competitors are Dunnes Stores and SuperValu.

Gemco was an American chain of membership department stores that was owned by San Leandro-based Lucky Stores, a California supermarket company which eventually became part of Albertsons. Gemco operated from 1959 until closing in late 1986. A number of the west coast stores leases were sold to Target which fueled their entry into California. Gemco had a version called Memco, also owned by Lucky Stores, that operated stores in the Chicago, Illinois, and Washington, D.C., areas.

Pathmark is a supermarket brand owned by Allegiance Retail Services, a retailers’ cooperative based in Iselin, New Jersey, USA. Pathmark currently has one location in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York, which it has operated since 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Superquinn</span>

Superquinn was an Irish supermarket chain, founded in 1960 and entirely privately owned by the Quinn family. Select Retail Holdings, a property buying consortium, purchased the company from the Quinn family in 2005. A receiver was appointed to the company on 18 July 2011, and the following day the company was bought by Musgrave Group for an undisclosed sum. On 13 February 2014 all remaining units were rebranded as SuperValu.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ICA Gruppen</span> Swedish retail franchise

ICA Gruppen AB is a Swedish retailer franchise with a focus on food and health. The group also owns a bank, real estate division and a pharmacy chain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guineys</span>

Guineys, is a chain of Irish department stores founded in June 1971. The chain specialises in homewares, menswear, womenswear and children's clothing. They have 11 stores in Ireland, located in Dublin, Limerick, Waterford, Castlebar, Tralee, Cork, Clonmel, Mullingar, Kilkenny, and, as of December 2018, one in Northern Ireland, at Castle Place in central Belfast. It is well known for having its two Dublin stores almost within sight of each other - one on North Earl Street and one on Talbot Street, two streets which run directly into each other, off O'Connell Street.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dunnes Stores</span> Irish multinational retail chain

Dunnes Stores is an Irish multinational retail chain that primarily sells food, clothes and household wares. It was founded by Ben Dunne in 1944. In addition to its main customer base in Ireland, the chain also has operations in Spain. The format of most of the chain's stores in Ireland involves a grocery supermarket operating alongside a clothing/textiles store, although some stores contain only textiles and some contain only a supermarket. The grocery side of the business does not operate outside of Ireland, save for a limited grocery range in the Spanish stores. The larger stores usually contain a café branded as either Café Sol or Dunnes Stores Café.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Giant Eagle</span> American supermarket chain

Giant Eagle, Inc. and stylized as giant eagle) 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 the Pittsburgh suburb of O'Hara Township.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franklins</span> Defunct Australian supermarket chain

Franklins was an Australian discount supermarket chain selling packaged groceries and perishables throughout New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia. It sold the "No Frills" home brand generic products. In 2011 the chain was bought by Metcash and the stores were sold off, shut down or converted into new supermarket banners or other brands. The final store closed in April 2015.

No Frills is a Canadian chain of discount supermarkets, owned by Loblaw Companies Limited, a subsidiary of George Weston Limited. There are over 200 franchise stores located in nine Canadian provinces.

In the Republic of Ireland, the retail sector provides one of the largest sources of employment in the economy, representing over 12% of the workforce. As of 2017, approximately 40,000 wholesale and retail businesses employed almost 280,000 people in Ireland, with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment reporting that 90% of these businesses were Irish-owned.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Woolworths Supermarkets</span> Australian multinational supermarket chain owned by Woolworths Group

Woolworths Supermarkets is an Australian chain of supermarkets and grocery stores owned by Woolworths Group. Founded in 1924, Woolworths today is Australia's biggest supermarket chain with a market share of 33% as of 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fiesta Mart</span> Latino-American supermarket chain based in Houston, Texas and established in 1972

Fiesta Mart, L.L.C., formerly Fiesta Mart Inc., is a Latino-American supermarket chain based in Houston, Texas that was established in 1972. Fiesta Mart stores are located in Texas. The chain uses a cartoon parrot as a mascot. As of 2004 it operated 34 supermarkets in Greater Houston, 16 supermarkets in other locations in Texas, and 17 Beverage Mart liquor store locations. During the same year it had 7.5% of the grocery market share in Greater Houston. Many of its stores were located in Hispanic neighborhoods and other minority neighborhoods.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gristedes</span> New York City-based chain of supermarkets

Gristedes is a New York City–based chain of supermarkets. It serves a mostly urban customer base.

Pat Quinn was an Irish publican, hotelier, music promoter, storyteller, former millionaire and founder of the Quinnsworth group, Ireland's first supermarket chain. He invented the term "yellow pack". According to The Irish Times, he was "one of the country's best-known business figures in the 1960s and 1970s", "the whizz kid of the Irish grocery business" and "a well-known figure in the Irish-Canadian community" at his death. He worked, honeymooned and eventually settled with his family in Toronto. The Toronto Sun described him as "County Leitrim's favourite son".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Schwegmann Brothers Giant Supermarkets</span> Defunct American supermarket chain

Schwegmann Brothers Giant Supermarkets, commonly known as Schwegmann or colloquially Schwegmann's, is a defunct grocery store chain that served the New Orleans, Louisiana, metropolitan area and one location in Baton Rouge until 1997. The chain developed significant innovations in grocery retailing and influenced other big box retailers that emerged in the latter 20th century and early 21st century. The founder and chief executive of the modern version of the chain was John G. Schwegmann, although his uncle and grandfather ran predecessors to the modern chain.

3 Guys was a New Zealand, Irish and US supermarket chain that operated between 1973 and 2003.

References

  1. Oram, Hugh (July 24, 2017). "Gone shopping – An Irishman's Diary on Dublin's old grocery shops". Irish Times .
  2. "Quinn, John James". Dictionary of Irish Biography. February 2016.
  3. Groceries Order: Background [ dead link ]
  4. "Future of Mullingar H. Williams Store". Westmeath Examiner . 1987-11-07. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-08-08 via Irish Newspaper Archives.