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Origin Of Term "Ranch Market"?

Posted: 21 Jun 2007 11:10
by groceryvendor
The term "Ranch Market" pops up primarily in Southern California. Currently I know of at least a dozen existing stores using the term: Howie's Ranch Market of San Gabriel, Irvine Ranch Market, Rio Rancho Market, Chino Ranch Market, Pacific Ranch Market among them.

Obviously it seems like another way of saying "farmer's market" to me, but I'm a non-Californian and just guessing. Can anyone provide a more meaningful history of the term?

Posted: 21 Jun 2007 16:59
by lvkewlkid
there's a chain in Las Vegas called the King Ranch Market, which is hispanic-based...

Posted: 22 Jun 2007 10:56
by Dave
I'm not a Californian either, but I would say that using the term "ranch" in this context is nothing more meaningful than a different way of saying "farm".

It's just one of those regional variations. I've been doing some research on hotels and lodging that provides wonderful examples of the same thing - the terms "ranch" prevails out west, while "lodge" is more prevalent in the northeast for the same sort of facility, while "camps" in Maine are the same thing as "cabins", "cottages" or "bungalows" in other parts of the country.

Posted: 22 Jun 2007 11:32
by Groceteria
Agreed. I think it's pretty much the same way lots of people in the south, particularly older folks, use "curb market" to describe what many of us now would call a convenience store. It's just a generic term they use because lots of small, suburban stores in areas that weren't sufficiently populated to support a supermarket used to call themselves "curb markets" (presumably because you could park at the curb and run right in).

Posted: 10 Aug 2007 16:57
by Dean
Also the SoCal Asian chain 99 Ranch Market.

http://www.99ranch.com

They take over a lot of the vacant chain sites.

Hit their site listed above. Hit store locator, and then show all stores.

Pictures of all their sites are listed. You can practically tell what the original store had been! Quite a hoot!

Posted: 10 Aug 2007 18:47
by rich
Atlanta's "curb market" is what would have been called a "farmer's market" in many places or simply a "market" in urban centers like Baltimore, Washington, or Cleveland.---a mix of produce, deli, and other fresh food vendors.

At one time, most if not all the vendors in these places would have been truck farmers. There are farmer's market that set-up in various DC neighborhoods on weekends, with actual farmers from WvA, PA, and Maryland. In some places though, the vendors now are clueless about what they sell---when I lived in Nashville, the farmer's market seemed to sell the same crappy, flavorless produce as Kroger or HG Hill and when you asked they had no idea where it came from (even if the source was on the packaging, as memorably the case when I bought Michigan concord grapes).