Grand Rapids, Michigan chain grocery/supermarket locations, 1925-1960.
Grand Rapids is the second-largest city in Michigan. Even so, with 371 chain grocery locations on the chart, this project turned out to be much larger than I expected it to be: That's about as many locations as Madison, WI and Fort Wayne, IN combined, and that's in spite of the two latter cities having larger populations than Grand Rapids and being researched through a much more extensive chronological spread! Chains must have really thrived in Grand Rapids, that's all I can say.
More tidbits and idiosyncrasies...
- Most Grand Rapids streets have geographical suffixes of "NE," "NW," "SE," or "SW." On the plus side, these let you quickly discern which quadrant of the city an address falls into. On the minus side, they give no indication whether a street runs east-west or north-south. And they are always suffixes in Grand Rapids.
- Due to the chronically deficient Ancestry database, the 1950s directories were incomplete. The "1955" column is actually an amalgam of listings from 1954 (Kroger), 1955 (most chains), and 1956 (A&P, Eberhard). For 1960, I wasn't able to list Kroger locations at all. Oh well, incomplete data's better than nothing at all?
- In 1925, the city sported 4 F. Utting stores, 7 Purity stores, 13 Piggly Wiggly stores, 16 K&B stores, 35 A&P stores, and 36 C. Thomas stores. By 1930, every one of those chains but A&P had disappeared!
- Kroger entered Grand Rapids in the second half of the 1920s, and reoccupied a number of storefronts that the aforementioned chains had left behind. In doing so, they briefly became the grocery leader of the city, and how: In 1930, they had 99(!) stores.
- By 1935, a new incarnation of the C. Thomas chain had formed; though it petered out by the 1950s. Quite a few other chains rose and fell during this timeframe as well, including both local players and super-regionals.
- National had a very brief and fleeting existence in GR, arriving by 1930 and departing by 1935. They had 2 stores in a city where A&P had 51 and Kroger had 99, so it's safe to say they never had a chance.
- Meijer is the chain most closely identified with Grand Rapids today; however, it originated in the small town of Greenville, Michigan and did not expand into Grand Rapids until 1949. In case you're keeping score, their first locations in the city were at 4242 Division Ave. S. and 1645 Eastern Ave. SE.
- Grand Rapids' biggest grocer in the late 1950s was an outfit called Eberhard's, which traces its lineage back to 1925 or earlier (when it was a single store operated by Pearl Eberhard). I have no idea what eventually became of this chain, though. Maybe TenPoundHammer knows?
- I assume that Kroger and A&P both exited Grand Rapids by the early 1980s, and their decline was directly proportional to Meijer's growth...but that's just my assumption. Does anyone know the facts? Did Kroger build any Superstores in the city?