I’m in Arlington, and to this list I would add Whole Foods, Dean & Delucca in Georgetown, a Portuguese market I go to, whose name I can’t recall, a Super H in Fairfax and Lotte in Fairfax
I knew I was missing a couple, but I need to get out more!
Lexington: Super Wal-Mart (2 or 3), Meijer (2) and about 8,000,000,004 Kroger stores. E.W. James & Sons bought a couple of the Dixie-Winns (I mean Winn-Dixies) that went under last fall, and there’s still at least one W-D soldiering on.
Nah, I need to spend less time grocery shopping. I’ve also seen a Food Lion in NOVA as well. For some reason, I always notice grocery stores.
Where I live (Rockford, IL), we have Hilander (Kroger), Logli’s (Schnuck’s), Woodman’s, Aldi’s, and Save-A-Lot. There used to be Eagle’s, but they went out of business. 50 miles down the road in Elgin, IL, where I grew up, there’s Jewel-Osco (Albertson’s), Dominick’s, Meijer’s, and Woodman’s. Again, there used to be Eagle’s, too, but they call closed.
Dayton, Ohio- Mostly Kroger, a few Meijers, at least one Cub Foods (I think), and a handful of non-chain stores. Kroger definitely dominates; we are pretty close to the center of the Kroger universe (Cincinnati).
In my “second home” of Delaware, Ohio (near Columbus), I guess it’s pretty similar. In this town of about 28,000 people, there are THREE Kroger stores!
The biggies in Chicago are Jewel and Dominick’s (which is the same as Safeway). We also have Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s and lots of little grocery stores. And Costco.
Where I grew up in Northern California, we went to Safeway or Lucky, which was bought out by Albertson’s a several years ago.
My hometown had two Luckys, the Old Lucky and the New Lucky. Even people who moved to town after the New Lucky was built learned quickly to differentiate them. After Albertson’s bought them out, people switched names…sort of. You now get conversations like this:
A: I’m going to get some stuff at Albertson’s.
B: Oh, which one?
A: The New Lucky.
They also have TJ’s, Whole Foods, and Costco.
I used to shop at Kroger and Meijer when I lived in Michigan. A Meijer opened close to my work in the Chicago suburbs. People acted like they’d never seen a store before, it was absurd.
I just wish we had Trader Joe’s in Florida.
I forgot, we also have a Whole Foods here in Orlando, plus Super Target in some areas.
Des Moines, Iowa:
Hy-Vee
Dahl’s
Fareway
Iowa City, Iowa:
Hy-Vee
Fareway
Cub
Aldi
Eagle
Since Albertsons opened its first store here and its main headquarters are located here in Boise, they have a near monopoly on the grocery stores around my area. About your only other choices are Fred Meyer (northwest-based chain), Wal-Mart and an independent chain called WinCo. I’ve heard of most of the others mentioned in this thread, but I’ve never seen any of them.
Lafayette area: Payless (Kroger subsidiary), where I do most of my grocery shopping. Also Marsh (Indiana-only chain, AFAIK), Meijer, Sam’s Club, Wal-Mart, and Target. I also occasionally pick up a few items at Smitty’s Supermarket, an independent store around the west end of the Purdue campus.
Suburban Cleveland, Ohio, where I grew up: Fisher Foods, which became Fisher-Fazio-Costa (though generally referred to as Fisher-Fazio in commercials), then Fazio’s before the stores closed. Pick-n-Pay, which was bought out by Finast, then Giant Eagle. Stop-n-Shop, which had various owner names (Rini’s, Rego’s, etc.) depending on which particular part of the metropolitan area you were in. I think they were taken over by Tops.
Kroger and A&P had a presence when I was younger, but weren’t as bag in Cleveland as elsewhere, though Kroger-owned Bi Lo stores appeared around the time generic products (which Bi Lo stocked) did. Bi Lo also required you to bag your own groceries, so it appealed to budget-conscious consumers. There were also Bi-Rites, IGA (Independent Grocers Association) stores, Meyer Goldberg Supermarkets, and a few other chains/independents I’m forgetting. Not far from my old house was Danny Boy’s Farm Market, which is ceasing operations (if it isn’t already shuttered) after being the “first real employer” for generations’ worth of kids who were ready to advance beyond babysitting or delivering newspapers.
In Central Jersey, we have ShopRite, Stop N Shop (which used to be Foodtown, Edwards and I think something else), and Pathmark within a couple of miles.
For southeast PA, Acme is now an Albertson’s company, Safeway bought Genuardi’s, the others are unchanged. In addition to them there is Pathmark, Shop-Rite, Giant and one Aldi’s that never seems to be open.
In south central PA there is Giant, Weis, Food Lion, Publix, and one Aldi’s that nobody shops at because they have strange hours.
I miss the big smiling piggie at Piggly-Wiggly.
Wow, my sister told me things had changed. I haven’t been there since 1999. I forgot Weis. We never went there, so it wasn’t foremost in my mind.
Albertson’s is getting very Borglike, aren’t they?
Definitely. They also shut down the huge Acme distribution center that was in south Philly and built a new mega center in Lancaster county at the turnpike.
Growing up in Miami in the '80s, we had several different supermarket chains all over: Grand Union, Pantry Pride, Xtra, and Woolley’s all come to mind. Over the years, they all either closed or became Publix or Winn-Dixie. Of course, Miami also has Sedano’s, a local chain specializing in Hispanic foods, but they are always dirty and smell like bad meat and fish. And they have Wild Oats, which is kinda like Whole Foods, I guess.
Elmore’s, Country Mart, and Save-A-Lot. Wal-Mart also carries some groceries, but it’s not a Super Center.
Shop n’ Save
Oh, they changed their name a few years back, they’re “Hannaford” now. Everyone still calls it Shop n’ Save.
That’s it, unless you want to drive to somewhere that has a Shaws or make do with Wal-Mart’s poor selection (that’s still a town away). The pharmacy’s got canned goods and potato chips.
There’s only one grocery store in the city I live: Safeway. Not sure what Salem, OR has.
Back home in Tennessee, we had Food Lion, Bi-Lo, Kroger’s, and Sav-a-lot.
Research Triangle area, North Carolina: Winn-Dixie, Food Lion, Kroger’s, and Harris Teeter are the big four. Whole Foods is a local chain of “organic” foods markets. Hannaford and Piggly Wiggly were here but pulled out within the last six years.
IGAs hither and yon (they’re sort of a franchise operation – you own and operate your own store as you see fit, but agree to buy wholesale from them and have the right to use the “IGA” logo as part of your store name in consequence.)
Super WalMarts, BJ’s Wholesale Club, Sam’s Clubs, etc. and all the related gimmickmarts are also present. There’s also a chain targeting Hispanic-Americans that changes its name about twice a year; IIRC they’re “Galaxy Foods” these days, but don’t hold me to that; I may have missed a name change!)
Northern New York: Great American (formerly Victory Markets), P&C (Syracuse based regional chain, formerly Producers & Consumers Cooperative Markets), Super Duper, Price Chopper, IGA, Wegman’s. I can barely remember Market Basket having the first supermarket in my home town – the store still exists, though remodeled, and is one of the local Super Dupers now. Chains which were there but no longer are include A&P, Acme Markets, Loblaw’s. I think there’s still a Hannaford’s there.