[liberalnot]

believe it or not, vons was the 1st supermarket in the united states, beginning in 1941 or 42 in los angeles by the vons brothers.

in the late 80's safeway, of the san francisco area, was hemorrhaging from resisting a dart group (washington, d.c.) attempted takeover. safeway had to borrow billions to stay independent. so, vons in socal bought the ventura, los angeles, orange, riverside, san bernadino, and san diego counties stores from safeway, giving the latter badly-needed cash.

in the mid-1990's safeway had returned to profitability, and then vons was in trouble. so safeway bought vons, regaining its former stores and the old vons, as well.

unlike alberstons which bought lucky's, safeway had enough sense to keep the old vons name. albertsons destroyed probably 500 million dollars of accumulated advertising by dropping the lucky's name. for decades stephanie edwards, of the rose parade fame, had advertised for lucky's. when she yelled sou-ee, the ladies came shopping in droves! albertson is hated by their employees. in order to buy some luckys, albertson was forced to sell some stores to stater brothers by the state of california.

alpha beta bit the dust to ralphs, and ralphs in turn was purchased by kroger. kroger feared that safeway was out to buy them, so they bought ralphs to keep safeway at bay. kroger got king soopers in colorado a long time ago, and the phoenix chain, the name i forget, also.

these socal chains were large--200-300 stores, some of them larger than national chains. but all of that is gone now; kroger, albertsons, and safeway rule the roost...that is, until walmart unseats them. already $18.00 an hour union clerks at albertsons in socal are worried that the chains will demand lowering their wages to compete against walmart.

[PAR35]

believe it or not, vons was the 1st supermarket in the united states, beginning in 1941 or 42 in los angeles by the vons brothers.

Following a concept pioneered by Piggly Wiggly more than 20 years earlier:

" the first Piggly Wiggly opened September 6, 1916 at 79 Jefferson Street in Memphis. Operating under the unusual name Piggly Wiggly, it was unlike any other grocery store of that time. Shopping baskets, open shelves, no clerks to shop for the customer -- unheard of!"
http://www.pigglywiggly.com/cgi-bin/customize?aboutus.html

[Mjaye]

Great grocery store history, thanks. When Safeway bought out Von's and took over Pavilion, my local store, I saw a difference in quality. Now my local store is in a major remodeling phase, which is confusing if Safeway is in trouble.

Come to think of it, though, they dispensed with the convenient shorter aisles in favor of l-o-n-g ones, presumably to get people to do more impulse shopping. I hate when they rearrange comfortable stores, now I forget to buy things 'cause I didn't see them. I never used to need a list. Rant over.......