This is a list of all chain grocery locations my research has uncovered in Little Rock and North Little Rock between 1925 and 2021, compiled from city directories, telephone books, and other sources. There may be some omissions due to incomplete or missing data, etc. and I welcome suggestions and corrections. Please read about my methodology for more information about what I do and do not include.

View and download a copy of this location spreadsheet via Google Sheets.

Notes:

  • Kroger apparently entered Little Rock through the purchase of Cox Cash Stores. They also did several swaps with Black & White Stores.
  • Safeway owned Little Rock’s Piggly Wiggly stores by at least 1930. Some stores were listed as “Safeway” in 1935 but may actually have operated as Piggly Wiggly stores.
  • Model Markets was a franchise/co-op. Black & White may have been as well.
  • National Tea was in and out in less than a decade.
  • Harvest Foods was the name given to Safeway stores when they were purchased ca. 1987 as part of Safeway’s exit from the market. Based on the directory information, there is some question about whether some stores may have closed for a time between owners. Harvest went bankrupt in 1995 and things got confusing after that with stores being listed under multiple banners (Harvest, City Market, and Food Giant). Edwards Food Giant seems to be the survivor of that lineage today.
  • Kroger ended up purchasing several Harvest locations and now operates at least one stores that was probably built as a Safeway and another than started as Skaggs-Albertsons (later Skaggs-Alpha Beta).

Store tags:

  • Black & White
  • Cox Cash Stores
  • Harvest Foods/City Market/Edwards Food Giant
  • IGA
  • Kroger
  • Model Markets
  • National
  • Piggly Wiggly
  • Safeway
  • Weingarten

This is a list of all chain grocery locations my research has uncovered in Lincoln between 1925 and 2015, compiled from city directories, telephone books, and other sources. There may be some omissions due to incomplete or missing data, etc. and I welcome suggestions and corrections. Please read about my methodology for more information about what I do and do not include.

View and download a copy of this location spreadsheet via Google Sheets.

Store tags:

  • Albertsons
  • Freadrich Bros
  • Handy System
  • Hinky Dinky
  • Hy-Vee
  • IGA
  • Piggly Wiggly
  • Russ’s/B&R
  • Safeway
  • O.P. Skaggs
  • Sun Mart

This is a list of all chain grocery locations my research has uncovered in Calgary between 1930 and 1991, compiled from city directories, telephone books, and other sources. There may be some omissions due to incomplete or missing data, etc. and I welcome suggestions and corrections. Please read about my methodology for more information about what I do and do not include. I was not able to access city directories between 1953 and 1968; the 1960 listings are from newspaper ads and some chains may not be represented.

Access and download the location spreadsheet via Google Sheets.

Store tags:

  • Calgary Co-op
  • Dominion
  • Empress
  • Food City
  • Jenkins Groceteria
  • Loblaws/L-Mart
  • Piggly Wiggly
  • Red & White
  • Safeway
  • Shoprite
  • Super Valu
  • Woodward’s

647irving3

More precisely, happy birthday to Groceteria.com, which was born fifteen years ago today as a post on another site. It was part of some of the earliest research that eventually became Groceteria.com. The post noted that this storefront on Irving Street in San Francisco was originally one of the earlier Safeway stores in the city and also mentioned that there had been Piggly Wiggly stores in San Francisco. Further, it suggested that there would be more to come on this subject.

Back in 1999, there was very little information online about the history of supermarkets in the US and Canada. To say that interest has grown would be an understatement. I like to think this site had some part in all that. Things have been a little less active here the past few years due to work pressures and a lot of family issues for me, but I’ve been working on things a lot more lately, adding features and content, and I hope there will be ever more new stuff in the coming months.

Thanks for stopping by.