A Supermarket History Timeline

1859: The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (A&P) is founded.

1914: Four Safeway stores are operating in the United States.

1918: Clarence Saunders opens the first Piggly Wiggly store in Memphis, and patents the first self-service grocery retailing system.

1926: Safeway Stores (as we now know it is) founded in Maryland with the merger of Marion Skaggs' stores and Sam Seelig Co. Other acquisitions in the next decade will include Sanitary Stores and MacMarr.

1927: The Safeway name appears in the San Francisco Bay Area, later to become its corporate headquarters.

1930: The first King Kullen store opens in New York, widely regarded as the first supermarket, although the 1920s-era Ralphs stores in Los Angeles probably have a more valid claim to the title.

1937: A&P begins consolidating its 15,000 small stores into supermarkets.

1947: Lucky opens its first full-scale supermarket in San Leandro CA.

1950: Swanson introduces frozen TV dinners.

1955: Supermarkets are responsible for 60% of American grocery sales.

1959: Safeway's first glass-arched "Marina" stores open, beginning with the Marina Boulevard branch in San Francisco.

1959: A&P begins using its "Centennial" model stores with colonial architecture and cupola.

1970s: Safeway ceases construction of the "Marina" prototype which identifies the chain around the country.

1972: Kroger's first "Super Store" opens in Ohio.

1975: A&P closes half its 3500 stores. The company will pull out of many markets in the coming years and will rename many of the stores which remain open (Sav-a-Center, Super Fresh, Food Emporium, and others).

1986: KKR takes Safeway Stores private to avoid a hostile takeover. The nation's largest supermarket chain ultimately sells half its 2200 stores, significantly reducing its geographic reach to large sections of the west coast and the Washington DC area.

1988: A hostile takeover brings Lucky Stores into the American Stores family with Jewel, ACME, and Alpha Beta.

1980s-1990s: Merger-mania unites Safeway, Dominick's, Randall's, Tom Thumb, Carr's, and Vons (Safeway Stores); Kroger, Fred Meyer, Ralphs, QFC, King Soopers, and Cala-Bell (Kroger Co.); Giant Foods, Stop & Shop and Bi-Lo (Ahold); A&P, Kohl's, Waldbaum's, and Farmer Jack (A&P); Harris-Teeter, Big Star, and Food World (Harris-Teeter); and many others.