Sioux Falls, SD chain grocery/supermarket locations
Posted: 05 Oct 2018 10:10
Yet another state filled that I've never actually stepped foot in:
Sioux Falls, SD chain grocery/supermarket locations, 1925-60
The grocery history of South Dakota's largest city is somewhat interesting. For starters, it's one of the few places that neither A&P nor Safeway ever competed in (unless it was part of a post-1960 expansion I don't know about). The first sizable chain to stake a presence there was an outfit called In Serve Out, which was absorbed by (or morphed into) Red Owl by 1930. By 1935, two strong competitors emerged: Economy Center and Sunshine. Economy Center led in store count in the early 1940s, but ceased to exist late in the decade. Red Owl continually waxed and waned, and by 1955 Sunshine was the city's largest grocer. And guess what? The company still exists today.
Other points:
Sioux Falls, SD chain grocery/supermarket locations, 1925-60
The grocery history of South Dakota's largest city is somewhat interesting. For starters, it's one of the few places that neither A&P nor Safeway ever competed in (unless it was part of a post-1960 expansion I don't know about). The first sizable chain to stake a presence there was an outfit called In Serve Out, which was absorbed by (or morphed into) Red Owl by 1930. By 1935, two strong competitors emerged: Economy Center and Sunshine. Economy Center led in store count in the early 1940s, but ceased to exist late in the decade. Red Owl continually waxed and waned, and by 1955 Sunshine was the city's largest grocer. And guess what? The company still exists today.
Other points:
- A "Kwik-Chek" store operated at 1700 W. 33rd St. in 1960. I'd bet my life that this had absolutely nothing to do with the Winn-Dixie Kwik-Chek chain whatsoever.
- National opened up shop in Sioux Falls in the late 1950s, during one of their many disastrous expansion drives. They couldn't have lasted long there, but they did leave behind an intact pylon-style building at 910 E. 10th St. This was the most interesting artifact I found in the city:
- There's an article about 519 S. Minnesota Ave., a long-lived Red Owl location, here. It turns out that the store was built in 1939, expanded in 1959, robbed three times in 1961 and 1962, converted to a warehouse format in 1976, and ceased to exist as a supermarket a year later.