Was "Skaggs Alpha Beta" used in California?
Posted: 12 Feb 2021 11:40
Let me get this straight regarding the history of Alpha Beta, just so I'm covering all the bases:
From what I gather from Wikipedia and other sources, Alpha Beta from the early 1960s to the late 1970s was owned by pre-Skaggs American Stores and was basically the West Coast counterpart to ACME and shared a lot of the same designs and layouts.
When American Stores and Skaggs merged, many of the former Skaggs Albertsons stores that Skaggs had kept became "Skaggs Alpha Beta", with the chain now essentially stretching from California to Texas. In the mid-1980s, ASC sold off the Arizona stores (eventually rebranded as ABCO Markets, ultimately being sold off piece by piece under Fleming), and then bought Lucky in 1988, intending to convert the California stores to the Lucky name.
In 1991, following an antitrust case regarding their acquisition of Lucky Stores, Alpha Beta stores in Northern California were largely converted to Lucky, but only a few of the Alpha Beta stores in SoCal were converted...the rest were sold off to Yucaipa Cos., which eventually converted them to Ralphs before selling them to Fred Meyer (which in turn sold to Kroger).
Meanwhile, all the Skaggs Alpha Beta stores in NM, OK, and TX, got turned into Jewel-Osco, and that only lasted a year before those stores got sold to Albertsons (along with the Jewel-Osco stores in Florida that ASC had launched as new stores). The NM stores became Jewel-Osco before becoming Lucky (and were converted to Albertsons as ASC was acquired by Albertsons).
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What I CAN'T find, however, is if Skaggs rebranded any stores in California to "Skaggs Alpha Beta". This 1988 article suggests that isn't true, but surely Skaggs opened a few larger, more modern locations in the early 1980s, right?
From what I gather from Wikipedia and other sources, Alpha Beta from the early 1960s to the late 1970s was owned by pre-Skaggs American Stores and was basically the West Coast counterpart to ACME and shared a lot of the same designs and layouts.
When American Stores and Skaggs merged, many of the former Skaggs Albertsons stores that Skaggs had kept became "Skaggs Alpha Beta", with the chain now essentially stretching from California to Texas. In the mid-1980s, ASC sold off the Arizona stores (eventually rebranded as ABCO Markets, ultimately being sold off piece by piece under Fleming), and then bought Lucky in 1988, intending to convert the California stores to the Lucky name.
In 1991, following an antitrust case regarding their acquisition of Lucky Stores, Alpha Beta stores in Northern California were largely converted to Lucky, but only a few of the Alpha Beta stores in SoCal were converted...the rest were sold off to Yucaipa Cos., which eventually converted them to Ralphs before selling them to Fred Meyer (which in turn sold to Kroger).
Meanwhile, all the Skaggs Alpha Beta stores in NM, OK, and TX, got turned into Jewel-Osco, and that only lasted a year before those stores got sold to Albertsons (along with the Jewel-Osco stores in Florida that ASC had launched as new stores). The NM stores became Jewel-Osco before becoming Lucky (and were converted to Albertsons as ASC was acquired by Albertsons).
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What I CAN'T find, however, is if Skaggs rebranded any stores in California to "Skaggs Alpha Beta". This 1988 article suggests that isn't true, but surely Skaggs opened a few larger, more modern locations in the early 1980s, right?