Hill's? Hill's-Korvette?

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Jared
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Joined: 01 Mar 2006 23:47
Location: PA

Re: Hill's? Hill's-Korvette?

Post by Jared »

Let1tb2 wrote:Hills was known for a short period of time as “The Hills”. Seem to remember an ad come to The Hills nearest you” They were purchased by Pueblo International in mid 70’s. Then later in 77 Food Fair ‘s Pantry Pride division purchase them and a year later closed them all. Waldbaum’s and King Kullen purchased quite a few.
Yes the waldbaums/ king kullen (third store relocation) in patchogue 100% is a former hills that went though a major expansion when it was waldbaums
kevin
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Joined: 07 Jun 2019 23:11

Re: Hill's? Hill's-Korvette?

Post by kevin »

John Michael wrote: 28 Aug 2006 23:40
Jeffrey55 wrote:When we moved to Junction Blvd. in Queens in 1963, on the dividing line between Elmhurst, Corona and Rego Park, there was a Penn Fruit supermarket on the ground floor of the Lefrak City housing development. (The store must have been only a couple of years old, because I think that first section of Lefrak City opened around 1961.) I had never before heard of Penn Fruit (but I now have learned all about it from the article posted elsewhere on this site). However, within a year or two, Penn Fruit vanished and was replaced by Hill's Supermarkets. I recall that their main office was listed as Farmingdale, Long Island. They did quite a bit of advertising, and I remember the store being quite nice.

At some point in the early 70s, what I thought was a very strange merger occurred, and the chain became known as Hill's-Korvette. E.J. Korvette, the regional discount department store chain, had its own chain of supermarkets. Despite having read an entire book about the rise and fall of Korvettes (as it was later known), I don't think I ever learned how this merger came about -- did Korvette spin off the food chain, or did it buy Hill's, or was there some kind of joint ownership? I always thought it was bizarre that the chain took on, and retained, the ungainly Hill's-Korvette name for years. It was still known as such by the time I left the area around 1976.

Of course, Korvettes went bankrupt and disappeared, but does anybody know what became of Hill's-Korvette Supermarkets, which disappeared as well? Does anybody know how wide a geographic area the original Hill's chain covered?
Jeffrey:
I also remember Hills Supermarkets as Riverhead also contained one in its shopping center (now KING KULLEN). I believe that both Korvetts, which I also remember, and Hills were New York stores only. I remember Hills' logo being orange in color as a lower case "h" circled the name. Boy, I wish I had kept so many of those supermarket matchbooks. Anyone have any for sale?
Michael
While I don't have any matchbooks from the Hills-Korvette stores, I did come across a recipe flyer from them. It shows the logos of both Hills and Korvette. The two sides of the flyer are attached but I'm not sure if both of them will display in this post.......
Kevin
The attachment Hills-Korvette recipe flyer- side 1.jpg is no longer available
Hills-Korvette recipe flyer- side 1.jpg
kevin
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Posts: 2
Joined: 07 Jun 2019 23:11

Re: Hill's? Hill's-Korvette?

Post by kevin »

Actually side 1 is the one that was successfully attached to the above post. Now here is side 2.
Hills-Korvette recipe flyer- side 2.jpg
Jared
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Posts: 69
Joined: 01 Mar 2006 23:47
Location: PA

Re: Hill's? Hill's-Korvette?

Post by Jared »

Jared wrote: 04 Jun 2018 19:26
Let1tb2 wrote:Hills was known for a short period of time as “The Hills”. Seem to remember an ad come to The Hills nearest you” They were purchased by Pueblo International in mid 70’s. Then later in 77 Food Fair ‘s Pantry Pride division purchase them and a year later closed them all. Waldbaum’s and King Kullen purchased quite a few.
Yes the waldbaums/ king kullen (third store relocation) in patchogue 100% is a former hills that went though a major expansion when it was waldbaums
Hills - Waldbaums- king kullen- and now becoming stop n shop. This store has had quite a run
Let1tb2
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Joined: 01 Dec 2017 21:16

Re: Hill's? Hill's-Korvette?

Post by Let1tb2 »

As a former associate of Hills as well as my whole family, this is my recollections of Hills.
Hills was owned by Hillard Coan and Korvettes wanted to merge with them to have them run the supermarkets that were attached to Korvettes.
Hillard and the founder of Korvettes got into a battle over control and Hillard was forced out, he then went to run Finast stores.
If my memory serves me right, Hills was then sold to Spartan stores and later to Pueblo Food. Pueblo sold to Food Fair/Pantry Pride
A year later both Hills and Food Fair we’re gone, believe it was 1978 when they closed
My first store was in Stony Brook Long Island and at the time it was one of the largest stores square footage on the east coast. We had full service seafood, butcher shop and a RX. Remind you this was 1973-74. I guess the public wasn’t ready for that large of a store back then!
Enjoyed my time with Hills and went to Waldbaum’s when they closed,
Still doing the grocery biz some 40+ years
later.
If anyone remembers more or I made a mistake please let me know
Let1tb2
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Joined: 01 Dec 2017 21:16

Re: Hill's? Hill's-Korvette?

Post by Let1tb2 »

Found more info
As I understood it, Korvette's founder Eugene Ferkauf brought in Hills Supermarkets as a partner to help run the Korvette Supermarkets division, which had no central food distribution infrastructure. The companies merged in 1965 and the supermarkets all became Hills-Korvette, but it turned out to be a negative turning point for Korvette, as the Pleasant Family Shopping blog notes:
...it proved to be a disaster from the start, with zero personal compatibility between Ferkauf and Hilliard Coan, Hills’ former chairman, and their respective teams. With Coan installed as chairman and Ferkauf as president and CEO of the combined organization (still under the name E.J. Korvette, Inc.), things bumped along uncomfortably for just over a year. It all came to a head in May 1966, when Coan tried to force Ferkauf out of the company.
That's when Ferkauf forced Coan out instead, by selling the company to Spartans Industries, which eventually sold off the supermarket business to Pueblo International. Ferkauf sold his shares and retired, and Korvettes was never the same.
Carlie
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Re: Hill's? Hill's-Korvette?

Post by Carlie »

I worked for Hills Supermarket in Queens NY from’71-‘78; started as a ‘wagon boy’, & went eventually to cashier- before scanners!! Hills merged with Korvettes, & many Hills were in the same shopping centers as Korvettes- ie: Douglaston, Queens NY & Valley Stream L.I. Then Hills broke off from Korvettes& a few years later merged with PantryPride&FoodFair. Their paper bags all had their new logo : PantryPride-HILLS-FoodFair! Then beginning in 1977 the Brentwood warehouse was closed& Hulls had a private company distribute all stock to its stores. 1978 was the last year Hills operated. I worked there til the last day. Management in the stores was terrible- District managers kept micro-managing the stores, which led to great losses & the chain’s demise!
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