A Game Just for Us Retail Historians

[Stork of The Weak]

Hi Ames Fan Club Forum members, my name is Jonathan. I was so happy to find your site. In the past, I've been more interested in reading old news stories online to learn about retail history. Until recent times I never really felt the need to discuss this topic with others, but I appreciate the opportunity to. I want to say up front that I'm not really interested in talking about anything on here other than retail HISTORY. Current events, trivia, discussion of employment, etc is NOT useful to me at all. Sorry if this offends any of you. I'm not trying to start a fight here, just want to make my position clear before any of you might wonder "why does this guy post so much but ignore all my questions and comments?"

To get things off to a good start, let's play a game. This isn't really a competition, instead it's just for fun. Can you guess what company I'm thinking about based on the clues in the description?

My last comment before we begin, please DON'T PANIC when you see how long this list is! I don't expect anyone to solve the whole puzzle right away! I just put all the examples that I thought would be really fun to experiment with.

1. This company started in Arkansas in 1962. Their founder died exactly 30 years later. In his honor, the company in 1992 made a logo change, but not a very major one.

2. What company changed their logo twice in the early 2010s but went back to their old (make that very old) logo in the past few months? Here's another hint as to this company's identity: when the founder died in 1971, the company also made a logo change, as did the company above.

3. What drugstore chain has bought smaller chains by the names of MediMart, Happy Harry's, and Drug Fair, in that order?

4. What drugstore chain bought the much smaller Brooks chain in New England, but sold itself to Rite Aid not long afterward?

5. What drugstore chain bought the Longs Drugs chain in California?

6. What supermarket chain in the Mid-Atlantic states once renamed some of its stores "Super Saver" but kept the old name at most stores, and eventually changed the new name back to the old? This chain's store brand items were once known by the names "Ideal" and "Wincrest".

7. What supermarket chain turned 100 years old in 1959 and started building stores with a brand new look to celebrate the occasion, but waited well into the 60's to change its store design again?

8. What supermarket chain owned the JM Fields non-food stores? (this is kind of a trick question)

9. What supermarket chain in the 1950s built stores with a roof shaped like the top half of a circle?

10. What supermarket chain in NYC broke off from ShopRite in the late 1960s, but has been dying in the past 20 years while at the same time, ShopRite has grown explosively?

11. What supermarket chain in NYC and New England had stores in the South by the alternative name Big Star?

12. What supermarket chain has stores in California and several other Western states, but also is a top grocer in the Baltimore/DC area in the East? This supermarket chain has acquired many smaller chains in big cities all over the USA, which always seemed like good news at first, but in two recent cases ended up leading to the failure of the smaller chain after many years of ownership.

13. What supermarket chain bought the Hannaford stores in Virginia, and owns gas stations/convenience stores by the name of Turkey Hill in Pennsylvania?

14. What supermarket chain bought the American Stores group of supermarket and drugstore chains in 2000, but sold the combined company to Supervalu in 2006?

15. What foreign company owns the Stop & Shop, Super G, Giant, and Martin's supermarket chains in the USA? It also used to own the chain called Edwards, which was dissolved, and the Tops chain, which was sold to a third-party company in the late 2000s.

16. What company experimented with the "supercenter" concept before Walmart, but has been slowly failing since then, even though Walmart has been growing?

17. What company bought its rivals Hills, Zayre, King's, and Murphy's Mart but itself went out of business? (this is the question that should stump absolutely NONE of you reading this!)

18. What company is the most popular supermarket chain in New Jersey, and allows each store in the company a lot of independence? This company in the 80's had a contest called "Kids in the Kitchen" and now sponsors a golf tournament in NJ.

19. What company is famous for reusing the stores that were closed by other companies, without remodeling at all? A lot of Ames buildings were taken over by this company, so the answer to this question shouldn't be a mystery to most of you!

20. What company is also famous for opening at closed store sites without remodeling, but sells clothing and not much of anything else?

21. What's the only mall department store chain that currently sells hardware, tools, appliances, electronics, and has auto centers?

22. What was another mall department store chain just like the above, but went out of business?

23. What more luxurious mall department store chain started in New York, expanded to California not long afterward, but ignored most of the states in between, until after it bought a huge rival with stores under many different names in 2006?

24. What's a luxury department store chain very similar to Macy's, but that has stayed regional unlike Macy's, and is found mostly in the Southern states but also a few Western and Midwestern states?

25. What's a luxury department store chain that has small clearance stores with "rack" in the name?

26. What's a less luxurious department store chain found mostly in Pennsylvania that sells appliances and electronics, but has no tools, hardware, or automotive products?

27. What was (no longer in business) a drugstore chain that started in the 1980s and had MUCH bigger stores than any other drugstore chain at the time? It even had some stores so big that the word "super" was added to the name.

28. What drugstore chain also started in the 1980s and also had much bigger locations than most drugstore chains at the time, but went out of business after many of its competitors started building bigger stores with drive-thru pharmacies? Most of this chain's stores were in buildings that started as small supermarkets. Even though this chain seemed so futuristic compared to the competition when it was new, I guess it failed because its stores didn't have "roots" the way competing chain drugstores did. For example, the "big four" drugstore chains (CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens, and now-defunct Eckerd) all grew through acquisitions of existing drugstore chains, and bought many independent mom and pop drugstores that had a long history. The "big four" ended up outgrowing most of these store sites they bought though, and relocated most of these acquired stores even though it cost a lot of money, time, and trouble to buy them in the first place.

29. What store chain (now long gone) did the retail real estate company Vornado start out as a part of?

30. What company (big hint, their rival is Lowe's) once had home furnishings stores called EXPO Design Center?

31. What company calls some of their stores "experience the creativity" and bought their then-big rival Cloth World about 20 years ago? They also bought a big rival called House of ******* around the same time. I censored part of their name that would make this question way too easy to answer. But remember this is all about fun!

And a special hint just for that last mystery: you can see one of their stores in the movie "American Graffiti" from 1973. Even by 70's standards the store in the movie looks quite old and small, so I'm thinking it opened sometime before 1950, or maybe even before World War II or slightly before the Great Depression. Most likely this particular store was closed and the building gutted for a very different new tenant, after the original tenant was bought by the former competitor, the competitor that is the main subject of this mystery.

[Stork of The Weak]

What, no takers?

[Stork of The Weak]

ANSWERS:

1. WAL-MART/WALMART

2. JCPenney

3. Walgreens

4. Eckerd

5. CVS

6. Acme [Markets]

7. A&P

8. Food Fair, later known as Pantry Pride

9. Penn Fruit [Co.]

10. Pathmark

11. Grand Union

12. Safeway

13. Kroger

14. Albertsons

15. Ahold

16. Kmart

17. Ames!

18. ShopRite

19. Big Lots

20. Burlington [Coat Factory/Coat Factory Warehouse]

21. Sears

22. Montgomery Ward/Wards

23. Macy's

24. Dillard's

25. Nordstrom

26. Boscov's

27. Phar-Mor

28. Drug Emporium

29. Two Guys

30. The Home Depot

31. Jo-Ann Fabrics

[BillyGr]

9. What supermarket chain in the 1950s built stores with a roof shaped like the top half of a circle?

There is at least one other answer to this, possibly more.

It looks like Safeway had their first Marina store in 1959, so that would qualify.

I'm not sure if ShopRite had any of there stores in the 1950's built like this, but they certainly did have quite a few over the years as well.
Just depends on where you are thinking of, I guess.

P.S. - I knew most of them, but wasn't sure if you really wanted someone to post the answers and thus spoil it for others.

[Stork of The Weak]

P.S. - I knew most of them, but wasn't sure if you really wanted someone to post the answers and thus spoil it for others.

Which ones did you know? And which ones did you not know?