A brief timeline of chain grocery history in Montréal:

• 1918: Ida Steinberg opens a grocery store on Boulevard St-Laurent that will grow into the largest supermarket chain in Québec within a few decades.
• 1922: Montréal’s first Piggly Wiggly stores open as 123 (now 1407) Bishop and 710 (now 1302?) Mont-Royal E.
• 1922 (ca): The Pure Food Stores chain begins operation. This chain will later adopt the “Stop & Shop” brand.
• 1923 (ca): Dominion Stores arrives in Montréal.
• 1924 (ca): The first Tousignant & Frères store opens at 2304 Mont-Royal E.
• 1926 (ca): The first Thrift Stores locations open.
• 1927: The first A&P branches in Canada open at 5065 (now 5163?) Sherbrooke W, 5846 (now 5902) Sherbrooke W, and 3015 Masson.
• 1929: The Montréal Piggly Wiggly stores merge with Stop & Shop.
• 1933: The first Dionne’s Big Market opens at 2077 Ste-Catherine W. A second opens a few weeks later at 5055 Decarie.
• 1936: Stop & Shop and Thrift Stores merge, combining theirs stores in Montréal, Ottawa, and Toronto.
• 1947: Magasins Lasalle is established as a co-op/franchise chain by Rolland Jeanneau in Verdun.
• 1953: IGA begins operations in Montréal.
• 1955: Dominion Stores acquires Thrift Stores. The latter brand is phased out ca. 1959.
• Late 1950s: Magasins Lasalle begins opening stores under the Metro name. The company renames itself Metro-Lasalle in 1963.
• 1960: Weston/Loblaw purchases Dionne Ltd.
• 1961: Steinberg opens its first Miracle Mart department stores (which generally have Steinberg stores adjacent).
• 1969: Oshawa Wholesale (later the Oshawa Group) acquires Shop & Save IGA.
• 1971: Oshawa Group rebrands its Towers discount department stores as Bonimart, as it moves to using only French-language branding in Québec. It will ultimately rebrand many of its IGA stores under the similar Boniprix name.
• 1972: Provigo launches new three-tiered for its supplied stores: Provigain for the largest stores, Provibec for medium-sized stores, and Provi-Soir/Provipop for small neighborhood stores.
• 1975: Provigo opens several AVA (Aux Vraies Alimentaires) stores in the area. Eventually there will also be a handful of Provigo’s Aubaines Alimentaires and Jato stores in the area along with the other “Provi-” brands.
• 1976: The Metro and Richelieu cooperatives merge to form Metro-Richelieu.
• 1977: Provigo acquires Dionne stores from Loblaws and also acquires control of wholesaler and retailer M. Loeb. Shortly after, the Dionne stores seem to have been rebranded as Provigain.
• 1981: Provigo purchases the Montréal area Dominion Stores and converts them to the Provigo name, which replaces the various other Provigo banners as well. This gives Provigo a huge retail presence in the city, where it has had few retail outlets to date.
• 1984: Steinberg opens its first Marché du Jour superstore in the former Hypermarché/Bonimart space in Laval’s Centre 2000.
• 1984: Provigo purchases A&P’s remaining Montréal stores. A&P retains only two locations in Québec, both of which are located in small towns near the Ontario border.
• 1984: Provigo opens its first Maxi superstore in a converted Kmart at 2685 Chambly in Longueil.
• 1983-84: The first Super Carnaval (later Super C) superstore locations open in Québec.
• 1987: Metro-Richelieu acquires Super Carnaval.
• 1988 (ca): Steinberg begins expanding its Valdi discount chain to Québec.
• 1989-90: Steinberg is sold in a leveraged buyout and sales of assets begin almost immediately. The Ontario stores are sold to A&P in 1990.
• 1992: Steinberg closes its last remaining stores in Québec. All but 16 are sold to Metro-Richelieu, Oshawa (IGA), and Provigo. The Miracle Mart stores (rebranded as M) are shuttered.
• Mid-1990s: Sobeys begins expansion into the Montréal area.
• 1996: Loblaws opens stores under its own name for the first time in Quebec.
• 1998: Loblaws acquires Provigo.
• 1998: Sobeys acquires the Oshawa Group, giving it control over Quebec’s IGA stores.
• 2015: The 17 remaining Loblaws stores in Québec are rebranded as Provigo.