Save At Venture...Save With Style!

A new field of study has emerged in the past several years. Our most esteemed institutions of higher learning – Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Triton and others - have been uncharacteristically slow to recognize it and develop the appropriate degree curriculums for it. This lack of formal recognition has not deterred those who carry on this vital work, however.

I’m talking about the Retail Archaeologists – those hardy souls who brave the elements… who risk running afoul of the law…who put their life on the line, walking on brittle abandoned department store floors and roofs, amid falling debris, in order to capture the perfect shot of a day-glo wallpaper remnant, a patch of original tile, a section of a zig-zag awning. These are the people who unearth the relics, who reveal the work of the ancient masters of the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, buried beneath years of neglect and fake stucco remodelings. It is they who perform these arduous tasks, while the rest of us sit in relative comfort in front of our laptops, snacks at hand, while “The Office: Season Four” episodes on DVD blare from our television screens. Where would we be without them, I beg?

There is one type of relic that particularly warms their hearts, and many of ours as well. A good many of these relics are still out there, wearing one of any number of nameplates - Kmart, Big Lots, Hobby Lobby…you name it. They have a unique identifying feature – a mesmerizing, converging and diverging diagonal pattern etched into the cement facades, placed there for reasons unknown. Had Erich von Däniken looked into this, it would have surely scored him another best seller. These were the late, great Venture stores.

Venture was a relative latecomer to the discount store world. By the time the first store opened in January 1970, discount stores were part of a well-established concept. The controversial early years of discounting, which struck deathly fear into old-line department store chains and featured battles with (and the ultimate defeat of) fair-trade statutes - laws that allowed the manufacturers of goods to set minimum sale prices - were over. By this time, most of the key regional and multi-regional players were in place, from the earliest discount chains (Zayre, J.M Fields and the other former “mill stores”), through the famous ‘Class of 1962’ (Kmart, Woolco, Target and Wal-Mart, all founded that year) and a plethora of others. Indeed, within just a few years, the Seventies economy would begin to shake out some of the weaker players, the first of many unfortunate “elimination rounds” to follow.

The Venture stores were a creation of The May Department Stores Company, a proud 90-plus year old chain of – well, the name pretty much explains it, that was based in St. Louis. In 1969, just before Venture’s launch, May was America’s third largest operator of “traditional” department stores, behind Federated (Lazarus, I. Magnin, Abraham & Straus, Bullock’s, Foley’s, Bloomingdale’s and Filene’s, among others) and Allied Stores (Jordan Marsh - New England and Florida divisions, The Bon Marché, Stern’s, Maas Brothers, Donaldson’s, Cain-Sloan and others).

At the time, May had an impressive lineup of store banners, including Famous-Barr in St. Louis, Kaufmann’s in Pittsburgh, The Hecht Co. in Baltimore and Washington, D.C. and surrounding areas, and two small operations in Ohio’s steel belt (although it was starting to rust by that point, for sure) - O’Neil’s in Akron/Canton and Strouss-Hirshberg in Youngstown. There were four divisions that operated under the May name: May-D&F in Denver (the first May stores had opened in nearby Leadville in the 1880’s), May-Cohens, Jacksonville, Florida’s largest department store, “The May Co.”, a major Cleveland area chain that was struggling at the time (See comments.), and “May Co.-Southern California”, far-and-away the largest division, with 18 stores and counting in that most vital of markets. May was also a major developer/owner of shopping centers, including Northland, South County and West County in St. Louis and a number of huge Southern California centers, such as Eastland in West Covina, the classic Mission Valley Plaza in San Diego and L.A.’s legendary Topanga Plaza, among others. (“Topanga” is thought to mean “a place above”. I hate to admit that when I first heard the word years ago, it brought to mind the sound effects from Don Martin’s famous Mad magazine cartoons. Slap me.) Then there were some newcomers to the May Company fold – in November 1965, they bought out G. Fox and Co. of Hartford, Connecticut, a downtown department store that May intended to expand into suburban locations. In July of the following year, May acquired Portland, Oregon-based Meier & Frank, a downtown store with two branches, at Lloyd Center and in Salem.

These last two acquisitions caused a problem that formed part of the impetus behind the founding of Venture. In the mid-1960’s, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission took a surprisingly aggressive stance in the area of retail mergers. The supermarket chain Winn-Dixie, for example, was barred from acquiring any additional grocery chains for a ten-year period starting in 1966. The following year, the five-year old merger between Von’s Grocery Co. and Shopping Bag Markets was invalidated altogether, forcing Von’s to sell off the latter chain. Sure enough, May’s recent acquisitions caught the unwanted glare of the FTC, and an investigation was announced. To avoid further scrutiny and the possibility of having to give up their newly won prizes, May executives offered a self-imposed moratorium on any further chain buyouts for a five-year interval. “Ten years and ya got a deal”, the FTC responded in the fall of 1966. (Note: the foregoing is not the actual consent decree language. Just thought I’d clarify.) Thus, an important avenue of growth was now closed off.

There were other reasons behind May’s decision to plunge into discounting. While there wasn’t a “deathly fear” of the discounters, there was certainly an awareness that some business was slipping out of May’s hands into theirs. More importantly, it would provide an expansion gateway into areas that May didn’t have a presence, notably Chicago.

As it happened, the timing couldn’t have been better for May to launch a discount operation, as one of the industry’s true visionaries was suddenly on the market, ready for a new challenge. This was John Geisse, who in mid-1968 resigned from Dayton Corporation (renamed Dayton-Hudson the following year), for whom he started Target in 1962. Geisse is widely credited as the originator of the “upscale discount retail” concept. The accounts vary as to why Geisse left Target, ranging from disagreement with fellow Dayton executives about expansion plans (Geisse favored saturating existing markets over expanding into new ones, according to author Laura Rowley in her book "On Target") to a snub for the presidency of Target (despite his key role, he only held a v.p. title), to the notion that Geisse vastly preferred the excitement of the start- up period versus the long haul of day-to-day operations, as retired May chairman and former Dayton vice president David Babcock later told Discount Store News.

When Babcock, who himself resigned from Dayton to take an executive position at May in 1967, got wind of Geisse’s resignation, he immediately contacted him. The two men had worked together at Dayton since the early 1950’s, and Babcock was well aware of Geisse’s accomplishments there. He told Geisse he “felt there was room for another Target”, and arrangements were made for Geisse to pitch the “upscale discounter” concept to May’s executive committee. On September 3, 1968, a Wall Street Journal article made it official – “May Appoints Geisse To Head Discount Venture”. No pun intended.

The new subsidiary, called Venture Stores, Inc., was organized throughout 1969 with the goal of opening the first store early the following year. On January 29, 1970, right on schedule, the first Venture store opened in the St. Louis suburb of Overland, Missouri. The book “On Target”, in noting the similarity in layout between the early Venture stores and Target, features the following quote from a Target executive: “John (Geisse) went from Target [to the May Company] with the rolled-up blueprints of the chain under his arm – and the first Venture store was identical in layout.” Considering Geisse’s intimacy with the concept, of course, the blueprints themselves were hardly necessary. A successful formula was a successful formula, and by mid-1971 six Venture stores were open: four in the greater St. Louis area –Overland, Kirkwood, Kingshighway at Christy Boulevard, and Fairview Heights, Illinois - and two more not far away in Alton, Illinois and Springfield, Missouri.

Through Venture’s first couple of years, its expansion was fairly slow and methodical. By the end of 1972, there were 12 stores - a critical milestone, because that was the point at which May management felt that the chain “would have sufficient volume and market penetration to support a professional central organization”, as stated in May’s 1972 annual report. Only two additional stores were planned for 1973, including a huge 162,000 square foot store in booming suburban St. Charles.

It was an approach that made sense, considering the plight of a number of several discounters and variety stores in the unforgiving economy of those years. Soon, the casualties would begin mounting – the Interstate chains (Topps and White Front), the American-as-apple-pie W.T. Grant, and more to follow as the decade wore on. Meanwhile, the focus at Venture was on brand building. A May 1974 article by New York Times reporter Isadore Barmash on the gloomy state of the discount biz features some great insights from Venture chief John Geisse on his advertising philosophy, which was to promote “images, rather than seek to capitalize merely on the merchandise advertised. Our gross margin results seldom pay for the ads we run, so that we have to gear our ads to produce a good over-all image for the company.” It’s a shame more retail chains didn’t take his advice.

The pace accelerated in 1974/75, however, as Venture pushed on into two important new markets – four new units in the greater Kansas City area – two on the Missouri side (Kansas City and Independence) and two on the Kansas side (Kansas City and Overland Park), all large stores. The big move, from a long-term standpoint at least, came in February 1975, when the company opened its first three stores in the Chicago area – in Oak Lawn at 95th and Crawford, Calumet City at River Oaks Center, and in Mount Prospect at Elmhurst Road/Route 83 (“eighty-tree” for you non-natives) and Dempster Street, on the former site of a National Food Store. This last one was close to my heart, and even closer to my junior high school – just a couple of blocks away.

(It was an interesting era to be in grade school. Some of my teachers had begun their careers in the early 1950’s, and twenty-five years later still had the demure manner and conservative style of dress one associates with that era. Then you had my math teacher, who wore shoulder-length hair, a ‘stache and an attitude and played rock music 45’s in class. The class’ favorite was “Bad Time” by Grand Funk, which I’ve probably heard three times since 1976 but still remember very well. He inscribed my seventh-grade yearbook “Eat a peach”, as I recently rediscovered. The school was torn down in the early 1980's due to a declining kid population.)

Interestingly, these initial Chicago area Venture stores were all teamed with A&P supermarkets, with A&P as a lessee to Venture. The Mount Prospect store sported the first A&P “tri-color” logo sign I ever laid eyes on, looking subtly attractive and modern against Venture’s trademark diagonal-patterned cement facade. The stores shared a common passageway, to the probable relief of A&P, who viewed the “Venture venture” as a lifeline. It would turn out to be A&P’s last gasp in the Chicago area.

Venture pulled out all of the stops for their Chicago launch, with month-long grand opening sales and a huge TV advertising blitz, each spot ending in the soon-to-be-familiar refrain – “It’s not just another discount store!!!” Venture chairman John Geisse hit the promotion trail as well, showing up at all three grand openings and giving a speech before that all-important audience – the Mount Prospect Rotary Club, as reported in the Daily Herald on February 25, 1975. In his talk, he gave a historic overview of the discount industry, with insights along the way as to why certain chains succeeded and others failed. He cited the example of one chain that “maintain(ed)a ’controlled dirt’ level in its stores indicating to consumers that it was a low overhead business”, and mentioned others that “always thought the next step was the big promotion” or “had no fashion sense” , while the discounters that prospered were “properly managed”, ‘’offered one-stop shopping”, and handled “presold” merchandise – “items purchased periodically which the housewife doesn’t need guidance in selecting”. He also addressed the special appeal of discount stores to the teenage market, where “peer needs exceed their ability to buy”. Oh, how I’d love to have been in that audience, especially since it took place so close to home. As it was, it was probably a typical weeknight for me… putting off my homework until the last possible second…lobbying for permission to stay up and watch Hawaii Five-O or whatever else was on at 9pm...ah, the life of a sixth grader!

Not long afterwards, Geisse left the May Company to start his own consulting firm. In 1976, he was appointed chairman of Ayr-Way stores, the former discount division of L.S. Ayres & Co., an Indianapolis-based department store chain. A decision by the FTC, which was obviously pretty active in the 70’s as well, forced Associated Dry Goods to spin-off Ayr-Way after its 1972 acquisition of Ayres. Ironically, ADG would itself be bought out by May in 1986, while the Ayr-Way stores would ultimately become Target units. (I should probably put this stuff in scorecard format, it would be easier to keep up with. For me, that is.) In 1983, Geisse would start up yet another company, called the Wholesale Club of Indianapolis, which grew to 24 stores and $650 million in volume before he sold it in 1990 to Wal-Mart (Geisse was a close friend of Sam Walton), whereupon the stores were converted to Sam’s Clubs. John Geisse passed away in March 1992 at the relatively young age of 71.

In March 1978, Venture reached an agreement that would nearly triple its presence in the Chicago area, making it the company’s most important market. After 17 years, Jewel Companies, Inc., decided to pull the plug on its Turn-Style discount store division, which had been struggling of late. Venture purchased 19 of that chain’s stores, 10 of which were in the Chicago area, including key locations in Glendale Heights, Schaumburg, Deerfield, Skokie and Merrillville, Indiana, among others. Also in the mix were locations in the Quad Cities and in downstate Illinois. At the end of 1978, there were a total of 20 Venture units in Chicagoland, including the Turn-Styles and two newly-built stores. Two additional new stores would open there in early 1979. With some of the finest store locations in Chicago under their belt, the airwaves were soon filled with a catchy new slogan, “Save at Venture…Save with Style”, which was adopted in 1981.

From this point, Venture’s growth settled back into a steady pace, adding a handful of new stores per year in St. Louis and Chicago, and the occasional multi-store entry here and there into other heartland markets – three stores in Oklahoma City and two in South Bend, Indiana, for example. By this time, Venture was no longer the May Company’s only “discount” division – in 1979, May acquired Topeka, Kansas-based Volume Shoe Corporation from the Pozez family. Volume Shoe was better known by their principal store banner, Payless ShoeSource. By 1985, there were nearly 1,900 Payless outlets, compared to 62 for Venture, doing only two-thirds the sales volume of Venture, but turning in more profits. In any event, Venture accounted for an impressive 20% of May’s total sales that year.

The following year, another discount chain would join the May Company fold, one with a bit more similarity to Venture. In October 1986, after months of negotiation, May bought out rival department store operator Associated Dry Goods, picking up venerable nameplates such as Lord & Taylor and J.W. Robinson, among many others. Also included were the Loehmann’s women’s apparel stores, which May quickly sold off. The “similar” operation was Caldor, the 35–year-old, Norwalk, Connecticut-based discount chain with a geographic footprint extending from New Hampshire to Virginia. ADG had purchased the company from founders Carl and Dorothy Bennett in 1981. At the time of the May buyout, Caldor was in the midst of a major expansion in New Jersey, opening five new stores there in 1986. While larger than Venture (115 stores compared to Venture’s 65), Caldor was far less profitable. May’s 1986 annual report, the first one to follow the ADG buyout, acknowledged Caldor’s problems, blaming them largely on excess inventory. Speculation arose that May would combine Caldor and Venture into a single chain, presumably to spread Venture’s winning ways throughout the entire operation.

That never happened. As the 1980’s rolled on, it was evident that the May Company was no longer interested in the discount store business. By 1989, they were looking for a graceful exit. Many factors played into this, I’m sure, including little stomach on May’s part for “fixing” Caldor, and the fact that their two discount chains combined now made up only 12% of the company’s revenue. Maybe they saw the oncoming competitive threat from Wal-Mart, but few crystal balls were that accurate at the time. And with Lord & Taylor now under their wing, they no longer needed the discounter for a foothold in Chicago, if that was a concern. A June 1989 article by the NYT’s Isadore Barmash got to the crux of the issue: “May doesn’t need to sell these discount retailers, but admittedly, they don’t fit May’s department store image”, one analyst told Barmash, and a May insider added: “The fact is that Farrell and Hays (David Farrell, then May’s CEO and Thomas Hays, its president) never really liked the discount business, with its different economics.” Enough said.

One interesting scenario that made the press was a proposed “swap” arrangement, where May would trade the Venture and Caldor chains to Dayton-Hudson Corporation (the stores would then be converted to Target units) in exchange for their namesake department store chains, Minneapolis-based Dayton’s and Detroit-based Hudson’s. While this never came to fruition, May eventually did come to own the former D-H department stores, which by that time were flying the Marshall Field’s banner, in a 2004 transaction. (Dayton-Hudson had bought Marshall Field’s from the BATUS Group in 1990 and later adopted the Field’s name for all of their department stores. Let me get that scorecard out again.)

On October 11, 1989, May announced its plan – as reported by the Times’ Barmash the following day, Caldor (118 stores then) would be sold to CAL Holdings, a new company set up by Caldor’s top management and an outside investor group. The May Company would retain a 20% equity stake in the new firm. The 73-store Venture, on the other hand, would be spun off to May shareholders as a separate company, with each May shareholder receiving a proportionate number of shares in Venture Stores, Incorporated. Delayed for over a year, the spinoff finally took place in November 1990.

Venture’s existing management, including chairman Julian Seeherman, remained in charge, and they had ambitious plans for expansion. These plans included a move into a new region that would ultimately seal the company’s fate. Up to that point, their stores had been located in or bordered the Midwestern states. In late summer 1993, Venture opened 11 brand new stores in Texas - six in the Houston area and five in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex, along with a distribution center south of Dallas in Corsicana.

The focus here would be on “micromarketing”, a beloved term at Venture of late, where merchandise assortments for each store were finely tuned to the local buying audience. (As if that weren’t already required in their existing markets, we’re left to surmise.) For the Texas stores, apparently, this meant home décor themed with “cowboy boot, coyote and armadillo designs” in wall art and on throw pillows, and “leather handbags with ‘Texas’ boldly embossed on the front”, according to an August 1993 Discount Store News article. I’ve seen lots of armadillos over the years, but never a live one, just the “roadside” variety. I wonder if they were pictured “feet up” or down. (My apologies for the preceding lapse in taste.)

Jumping into two markets that were among Wal-Mart’s strongest and best-established territories was not the biggest problem with Venture’s new strategy. Far worse was the diversion of resources that should have been used to shore up Venture’s key market, in the face of “an onslaught of new Wal-Mart and Target locations in metro Chicago”, as Discount Store News later put it. The same article revealed that “(by) mid-1995, fewer than half the beleaguered Chicagoland stores had been through major remodeling”.

It would be some time before the seriousness of Venture’s expansion miscue was fully realized, and during that interim they tried some new initiatives. One was a new logo, an update of the “equity-invested diagonal stripe concept of the previous Venture logo but replac(ing) its industrial-looking, hard-edged lines with softer ones that suggest a furled flag”, according to a July 1995 Chain Store Age article. The logo’s “softer lines’’ tied in with another management decision, a move to reposition Venture upmarket, emphasizing higher end apparel sales while downplaying consumable items. Then came a dip in the U.S. clothing sales market. Without the traffic-driving aspect of consumable items to offset this, the results were calamitous.

By mid-1997, it was painfully clear that the Texas move was a mistake, that most of the company’s stores there would not be profitable over the long haul. At that time, Venture made the decision to sell 20 of its stores to Kmart Corporation, including ten stores in Houston, five in Dallas, two in Indianapolis and one each in Tulsa, Des Moines and Waterloo, Iowa, as Discount Store News reported on June 21st of that year. The chain would now have 93 stores, down from its 117-store peak in 1996. The company’s stated goal was “to focus on its core markets of Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City”, although eight of the better-performing Texas stores – three each in Dallas and Houston and one each in Corpus Christi and Amarillo – would be retained for a while.

Not a long while, as it happened. In May 1998, after yet more store closings, the company threw in the proverbial striped towel, declaring bankruptcy and announcing the closure of the then remaining 73 Venture stores. Some 45 to 50 of them ended up as Kmarts. (And more than a few of those are now something else, I’m sure.) Discount Store News summed up Venture’s demise as the result of a string of bad decisions – “failure to move into food” or to “compete promotionally with Target”, and “turning its back on tired, old stores in its core markets and heading to Texas’’ as previously discussed. At the most basic level, the company’s management “wasn’t hungry enough to beat the competition”, and they fell into a “middle zone” of not knowing whether to position Venture as “a lead(er) in price, assortment or service”. And so they bowed out, instead of facing the fiercely competitive retail world we’ve grown accustomed to in the 21st century. But I miss those diagonal stripes.

The first two of the May Company photos above depict scenes from the earliest Venture stores in 1970. Note the old, sliding credit card machines at the end of the checkout lanes, a good distance from the checkers, something I remember seeing in a number of discount stores. Funnily enough, I can remember my grandfather’s bank-issued Master Charge card (they’ve gone by the name MasterCard for eons now) actually had a photo I.D. section, back in 1971!

While the other three photos, from 1978, 1979 and 1981 respectively, are focused on the checkout areas as well, they provide a nice overall feel for the “golden age of Venture”, as well as an interesting glimpse of some fads and fashions of the time. The music: Neil Diamond (of course), Eric Clapton’s “Backless” album (panned at the time and underrated today – I think “Promises” is one of his very best songs) and Kenny Rogers’ Greatest Hits (I didn’t know anyone actually bought that album – I thought it was automatically issued to every American household at the time. Whether you wanted it or not.) Atari game systems make a couple of appearances, and then there’s the ubiquitous Milton Bradley “Simon” electronic game. (With a brain. Do what it says or go down the drain.) These photos also capture a tectonic shift in American life, the aftershocks of which are still felt today – the Transition from Paper to Plastic. In the last photo, you can see a lady buying a blue-and-white striped dress. She obviously wanted to continue the “Venture experience” at home. That’s the spirit!

Lastly, a 1971 Venture grand opening ad, for store number six, in Alton, Illinois:

The Subtleties of Signage

I don’t know about you, but I find the gaudy retail signs of recent years to be a real turn-off. Today's four-foot tall wooden eyesores or stacked-stone monstrosities always leave me longing for a simpler time - when understatement was the word of the day.

Take the sign shown above, for example. Notice how the gentle earth tones, orange and green, blend seamlessly into the surrounding landscape. You can almost hear the conversations that must have taken place…”You know, I’ve been gazing at that hillside for the last ten minutes or so…did you realize there was a Sears there?”

The main function of a sign is to inform, and this one does that beautifully. Its message is simple: “Everyone needs food, and most of us need something from the pharmacy now and then. Go no further. You can find these necessities right here.”

The best signs are like négligées… you barely know they’re there…

This well-known shopping center’s sign extends a warm invitation: “Welcome to Gulfgate. I’m safe - be at ease. Shop as long as you’d like - go home when you please.”

Now, a little background information on the photos, in the event you're curious: (1) Searstown Shopping Center, Winchester Road, Cumberland/La Vale, Maryland. Opened May 1, 1963. Height, 80 feet tall. From an advertisement for DuPont’s Lucite plastics. (2) Shoppers Square Shopping Center, South Virginia and East Plumb Lane, Reno, Nevada, opened November 5, 1964. The “Skaggs” portion of the sign featured blue lettering on a white background, the “Mayfair” portion, white on red. Height, 72 feet tall. From a 1965 Signs of the Times feature article. (3) Safeway, somewhere in Utah, mid-1960’s. Height, really really tall. From an ad for Dynapac rotating motors. (4) Gulfgate Shopping City, intersection of Interstates 45 (the "Gulf Freeway”) and 610 (“The Loop”), Houston, Texas. The shopping center was opened on September 20, 1956, but the earliest aerial photos I’ve seen do not show this sign. Later known as Gulfgate Mall, it was enclosed in 1967, then torn down and completely redeveloped starting in 2001. The sign still exists in modified form. Height, super mega tall. From an ad for another rotating motor firm, Specialty Engineering and Manufacturing Company.

A Charming Day at Wards

A brief look inside some typical Montgomery Ward stores of the mid-60’s, as shown in some official publicity photographs. They’re staged, of course, but they provide a nice feel for the Wards shopping experience of that era.

Much has been said and written about the services that most “fine” department stores once provided to their clientele. Home delivery (for even the smallest orders), gift wrapping, “personal” shoppers, interior decorating services, playrooms for the kiddos and more - at one time it was a very extensive list, pared down through the years as rising costs made these niceties impractical for the stores to carry them on.

Less talked about today are those services once offered by the “mass market” department stores – Sears, Penney’s and Montgomery Ward, many of which continued into the 1970’s. In Wards’ case, these included outdoor living shows, fashion shows, and for many years a charm school, the proud graduates of which can be seen in the first photo above.

For roughly ten years starting in the early 60’s, the “Wendy Ward Charm Centers”, a fixture of the larger Wards stores of that period, stood at the ready, eager to help America’s young girls mature into women of taste and refinement. “We recognize the young girls of this community are seeking competent, professional instruction in personal grooming, etiquette and appearance”, read a 1965 newspaper article heralding the launch of the Randhurst Wendy Ward courses.

The courses were aimed at three age groups – “Little Miss” (ages 4 to 8), “Jr. Miss” (ages 9 to 12) and “Teens” (ages 13 to 19). A 1966 ad for the Madison, Wisconsin program spelled out the curriculum in detail: “ - Instructions in proper and natural make-up. – Art of being feminine and charming. – Hair care and individual styling. – Exercises and diets. – Arts of conversation. – To walk, sit, stand with poise.” There were modeling classes as well, as a lady from Florida fondly reflected upon in an email to me a while back.

So if you happen to meet a particularly charming woman who hails from the baby boom years, think “Yep. Wendy Ward grad.” Not sure it would be polite to ask her about it, though. (We guys didn’t have a “Monty Ward” class to teach us such things.) It’s a shame that no society-minded 21st century retailer has picked up the mantle and introduced a “charm center” program of its own. Rumors that Hot Topic is considering the idea are unsubstantiated at this point.

Wendy Ward wasn’t the only fictional female inhabiting the cavernous new Wards stores of the day. The versatile “Carol Brent” was another, and her name graced a multitude of Wards’ house brand ladies’ fashions and accessories. She reigned over the girls’ toy department as well - the Ideal Toy Co. even manufactured a line of Carol Brent dolls, a Barbie knockoff. Wards credit card applications bore her name instead of “Jane Q. Public” on the cover.

In one ad Wards answered “the burning question”, with then-popular Ogilvy-style directness, just in case anyone was curious: “Who’s Carol Brent? Nobody. She’s an idea and a promise. Carol Brent stands for our idea that a lot of fashion and a lot of quality don’t have to cost a lot of money….” (At least they didn’t say “She’s a concept by which we measure our pain”. Wait, that’s a John Lennon lyric…)

The other scenes are self-explanatory, but I’ll give it a shot anyway: a little girl at the camera counter (can’t say I ever saw a roll of Montgomery Ward film – probably performed similar to Anscochrome), a young couple examining Damask drapery fabric (a big seller back then) in Wards’ “Style House” home décor department, a friendly Wards representative hands over “hers-and-his” credit cards (brings back memories of Flintstones cartoons and Wilma and Betty's battle cry: "Charrrrge it!"), gassing up an even then-classic ‘Vette (I’m guessing it’s a 1958 model), the catalog counter (everybody had…matching glasses!), and a family enjoying the Sunday paper, including the comics…and the weekly Wards flyer, of course!

Below, some nice examples of mid-60’s Montgomery Ward advertising – first, a photo showing the company’s Easter and Christmas advertising insert flyers. Last up, thanks to a tip from reader Danny, are two wonderful circa 1967 tv spots aired on (and presumably produced by) Houston’s KIAH-TV. Two of the stores mentioned in the commercials are pictured on this previous post. Having grown up in Chicago and watched the primitive but charming local commercials produced by WGN, long before it became a national cable presence, these commercials sparked some wonderful memories. The first commercial opens with a grand opening announcement for the new Pasadena, Texas store, and the second (with slightly out-of-sync sound) features a lady who might really be better off using paper plates.

Wards Strikes Up the Band

The weather couldn’t have been better on this sunny, sparkling Southern California afternoon. Excitement was in the air as the crowds gathered in. A speakers’ platform was in place, replete with the American flag and a group of men in suits, ties, carnations and broad smiles, beginning to take their seats near the dais. Soon the customary civic welcomes and corporate pledges would take place. And there would be special entertainment that day - the Disneyland Band was there! The whole unit, looking sharp in their bright orange uniforms, on a rare five-mile trek outside the gates of the Happiest Place on Earth. The real star of the show was the brand new Montgomery Ward store behind the stage – sporting a smart, modern look with a textured façade, three-toned sign and zig-zag awning. For a few hours that afternoon, it had to be the happiest store on earth. The date was August 11, 1960, and the place was the Honer Plaza Shopping Center, located at the corner of 17th and Bristol, in Santa Ana, California.

The opening of this store marked the five-year point of a complete reinvention of Wards’ image, which began with the forced resignation of longtime company chairman Sewell Avery. Cash-rich but moribund from a retail standpoint in 1955, the company’s leadership change became evident to the buying public two years later when Wards, whose store base had long consisted of aging urban and rural downtown units, began to open large, modern stores in the country’s storied suburban shopping centers.

Driving this expansion was Montgomery Ward chairman John Andrew Barr, who took the company reins after Avery’s ouster. Barr, a 20-plus year Wards veteran, came up through the ranks of the company’s legal department and was a rare individual in that he was neither fired nor driven away by Avery’s dictatorial manner, in a company notorious for massive turnover of upper management ranks. Author Booton Herndon, in his lively book “Satisfaction Guaranteed”, a 1972 history (and then-current portrait) of Wards, notes that company executives in the bad years seemed to profess a certain pride in the dubious honor that Wards had “trained” many of their competitors’ top people.

By any measure, Wards’ new store program was ambitious – according to a November 1960 Fortune magazine article, five new stores were opened in 1958, twelve more in 1959 and twenty-one more in 1960, mostly large, shopping center-based units. The article also sheds light on Wards’ store location strategy, which centered on locating stores in clusters within a specific market area, in order to be able to service the stores from centrally-located distribution centers (with the important additional benefit of maximizing the effectiveness of TV and newspaper advertising).

The market areas cited in the Fortune article were: “Detroit, Kansas City, San Francisco, San Diego, Phoenix, St.Petersburg-Tampa, Houston (and) Dallas-Fort Worth”. A carefully-selected set of markets that left many regions untouched, to be sure, but fleeing time and limited resources forced Wards to pick their targets carefully. Noticeably missing from this list is Wards’ home market of Chicago, where instead of opening new stores, Barr opted for an acquisition instead – In 1957, Montgomery Ward bought out The Fair, an old-line department store chain with a downtown State Street flagship and three suburban locations. Nonetheless, those fortunate enough to live in one of Wards’ chosen expansion areas were likely thrilled to have the gleaming new stores as a shopping option.

Five years of the “New Wards Era” and nearly three years of new store openings brought things to that August 1960 opening at Honer Plaza, where the light atmosphere became very heavy, for a while at least. The previous night, at a dinner held in Santa Ana for Wards stockholders and other dignitaries, Chairman Barr dropped a bomb. He announced, as Fortune later put it, “that the earnings prospects for the full fiscal year 1960 (to the end of January, 1961) were for a new low in the company’s postwar history”. The herculean effort, the new attitude and image, the beautiful new stores all appeared not to be paying off. (At this point in the evening, I would have said “Allriiiiight, waddaya say we bring the Disneyland Band out here? C’mon, everybody dance!! But that’s just me.)

To his credit, Barr had long realized the need for an infusion of top retail talent into Wards’ decimated ranks. For some odd, unexplained reason, the company’s board of directors had forbidden Barr to look to the one place that matched Wards’ business most closely – Sears, Roebuck and Company. (Although J.C. Penney had already surpassed Wards in sales by 1961, it would be a few more years before their business model fully lined up with Wards’, as Penney yet had no catalog operation and still sold mostly soft goods in their stores. By late 1963, Penney was in the catalog business as well and had also begun to open full line stores, complete with appliance sales and auto centers.) The Honer Plaza news was enough to get the Wards board to drop the needless restriction, though, so to Sears’ executives, current and former, Barr went a-calling.

Amidst all of this, rumors of a merger began to fly. In the fall of 1961, news accounts began to carry the story of a marriage between Montgomery Ward and Interstate Department Stores, Inc. as having all the earmarks of a done deal. Interstate, headed by Sol Cantor, was white-hot at the time - a formerly staid department store operator that was scoring big with newly-acquired discount chains on both coasts – White Front in Southern California and Topps in the East and more recently, Chicago. As quickly as it came about, however, talk of a Wards/Interstate merger fizzled. One reason for this, as Time magazine related after the fact, was that Cantor was miffed at being left out of the selection process of Wards’ new president.

In early November 1961, Barr announced he had chosen Robert E. “Tom” Brooker, a former Sears executive and since 1958, chairman of Whirlpool, the appliance manufacturing giant. Brooker, a one-time protégé (and according to author Herndon, bridge-playing partner) of legendary Sears head General Robert E. Wood, had been Sears’ vice president of manufacturing. This position didn’t even exist at Wards, marking a key difference between the two companies. Sears routinely held large investment stakes in their manufacturing suppliers as a means of implementing changes they desired, or shoring up weak operations. Oftentimes Sears would keep majority ownership of a manufacturer for years on end. (A popular business topic of modern times concerns the power that a certain well-known mass retailer wields over its manufacturing suppliers. In my opinion, Sears’ power back in the day was every bit as great, if not more so.) The Whirlpool Corporation, as it existed at the time, was largely the result of mergers engineered by Brooker from behind his desk at Sears. Montgomery Ward, by comparison, very rarely took an ownership stake in their suppliers.

Beyond Brooker’s years of high-level experience with Sears and his peerless ability to deal with suppliers, he projected an air of exceptional confidence that would prove essential to Wards’ survival. Indeed, immediately upon taking office, Brooker purchased a million dollars’ worth of Montgomery Ward stock, making him the company’s largest individual shareholder. Brooker accepted the Montgomery Ward presidency with the understanding that he would be in charge, and that was the case almost immediately, although initial press reports, including Time magazine’s, characterized the relationship between Brooker and chairman Barr as “on a par”. John Barr would stay on as Montgomery Ward chairman until 1965, when he resigned to take the reins of Northwestern University’s business school. There, Barr made the controversial decision to close down Northwestern’s undergraduate business program in order to focus the school’s resources on their graduate business school, which he also opened to women for the first time in its history. Under Barr’s tenure, the program (now called the Kellogg School of Management) became one of the most prestigious in its category, a distinction it continues to enjoy today.

Tom Brooker, of course, had his hands full keeping Wards on the road to recovery. To aid in the battle, he wooed a number of key people from Sears, none more important that Edward S. Donnell, who ran Sears’ Los Angeles territory, their hottest market area by a wide margin. Donnell, who himself had a reasonable shot at reaching Sears’ "mahogany row" within a few years was convinced by Brooker’s enthusiasm to forsake the ideal climes of SoCal and move to Baltimore to run Wards’ entire East Coast region. Within a couple of years, Donnell moved to Chicago, promoted to the number-two spot in the company. More Sears faces would appear at Montgomery Ward headquarters over the next several years. The aggressive building program would continue, with the sails trimmed back just a bit.

Would things get better for Wards? Yes, they would. But there would be times when they probably wished the Disneyland Band was waiting in the wings.

The pictures are Montgomery Ward publicity photos unless otherwise noted. The first store pictured was located in San Antonio, Texas, at the Wonderland Shopping Center (not to be confused with the Livonia, MI-based mall of the same name), and opened in 1963. Known in recent years as “Crossroads Mall”, it reverted to the Wonderland name earlier this year. Second up the Wards store at Houston’s Northline Shopping Center, which opened in 1960 and predated the mall itself by a couple of years. Third, a 1961 American Olean tile advertising photo which only identifies the store as a “Houston, Texas location”, which I believe to be the free-standing unit that was located across the street from the Palm Center shopping complex. Fourth, from 1962 and again from San Antonio, the new McCreless Shopping Center, complete with Photoshopped cars in the parking lot. (Wait, we‘re talking about 1962, right? I should have said “pasted-up cars” instead.) Fifth, from a 1963 Plexiglas ad, the famous Apache Plaza location, St. Anthony Village (Minneapolis), Minnesota. Lastly, the Honer Plaza location as it appeared on that exciting/exasperating 1960 summer day.

General Cinema's Feature Presentation

Here are a few scenes from various General Cinema theatres from 1976 through 1980. If you grew up going to any of their theatres during or around that era, these photos should resonate.

General Cinemas were an appropriate fit for the “New Cinema” of the early 1970’s, meaning the Hollywood trend toward “relevant” films as opposed to the popular sugar-coated fantasies of the preceding decades. These new movies – MASH, The French Connection, Shaft , Serpico and The Candidate, to name just a handful , represented a big departure from the “make-believe world that used to pass for ‘real life’ in the movies that enchanted millions a mere 10 or 15 years (earlier)”, to quote GCC ‘s president Richard A. Smith in a fascinating essay entitled “Cinemas for the 70’s”. These films were gritty, depicting the world as it was, however unglamorous it may have frequently been.

The move away from the stately theatres of the preceding decades and toward the comparatively spartan and functional theatres that GCC operated mirrored this trend. Fancy theatres were somehow no longer “relevant” to the moviegoing experience, the audience focus having shifted to the product onscreen, with the auditorium’s physical atmosphere assuming much less importance.

The convenience factor had played a huge part in GCC’s success as well – after all, this was the era of Perma-Prest clothes (or Penn-Prest, if your folks shopped at Penney’s), Hamburger Helper, and the rise of fast food restaurants on seemingly every corner. As Smith says in his essay, people were favoring “clean, comfortable, conveniently located theatres with adequate parking facilities and a reasonable number of entertaining films each year. The best combination of these factors is to be found in the large shopping center in which we have hundreds of successful cinemas established”.

And successful they were. By the end of 1971, the company had 172 locations (with 247 screens), mostly located in shopping centers. Another 49 shopping center locations, with 103 screens, were in the works. There were also 48 drive-ins at the time. The company enjoyed the benefits of being in a fairly recession-proof business, as proven out in the tight years of the early 70’s – commenting in 1971 that “our patrons were willing to give up more expensive forms of entertainment, such as legitimate (live) theatre, dining out, and week-end or vacation trips, but not their movie-going habit”.

By this time, General Cinema was making its mark in a completely different business, one that also proved to be more or less recession-proof – soft drink bottling. In 1968, GCC established itself as a major player in the soft drink bottling industry with four major acquisitions – American Beverage Corporation (Pepsi-Cola in Miami, Florida, several major Ohio markets, and a private label plant in Houston), Miami Seven-Up Bottling Company, Pepsi-Cola Allied Bottlers, Inc. (Multiple cities in Florida and Indiana, plus Savannah, Georgia, Lynchburg, Virginia and Charleston, West Virginia, and the Pepsi-Cola franchise in Cleveland, Ohio. Added to this were several Dr. Pepper and Seven-Up franchises, mostly in cities where GCC held Pepsi bottling rights. In just a year, GGC went from zero bottling holdings to owning 17 plants in seven states, achieving status as Pepsi-Cola’s second largest independent bottler. More bottling territories would be added in the ensuing years. In short order, revenues from the bottling operations exceeded those from the theatres.

In the mid-70’s, GCC became a soft drink franchisor as well. Having hired a successful former brand executive with General Mills, the company sought to market a proprietary brand of its own, and talks were initiated with Sunkist Growers, Inc., with the goal of obtaining soft drink manufacturing and marketing rights to the Sunkist brand. Sunkist, as described in Bettye Pruitt’s book The Making of Harcourt General, conjured up images in consumer’s minds “like motherhood, apple pie and a flag in this country”. In 1977, GCC won out over other companies interested in the Sunkist rights, including PepsiCo. Sunkist Orange Soda was introduced in mid-1978 and quickly became the most popular orange soda in America (a ranking it still holds), surpassing long time brands such as Orange Crush and Coca-Cola’s Fanta. This was no doubt helped by GCC’s memorable advertising campaign for Sunkist, which used The Beach Boys’ classic song “Good Vibrations” as its theme.

The theatre industry was changing by the mid-70’s, with multi-screen cinemas rapidly becoming the norm. In 1970, GCC opened 152 single screen theatres, 45 twins and one quad. In 1978, they opened just 32 singles, 181 twins, 95 triples, 23 quads and one 5-screen theatre. Various factors were behind this, one being an understandable resistance to tie a theatre’s fortunes to one picture – a lousy (or just plain unpopular) movie would depress that location’s profits for the duration of the particular film’s run. The chance for success was multiplied by the number of movies a theater could show concurrently. Also, by the mid-70’s, movies were given longer runs in theatres (in large part to defray the huge rental costs of such blockbusters such as The Godfather), so the size of the individual auditoriums began to shrink appreciably. Many existing GCC singles or twins were expanded to add more screens during the mid-70’s, frequently carved out of existing auditorium space. The increasingly smaller average auditorium size is a major reason why today’s 16-screen megaplexes are housed in buildings not much bigger than the triples or quads of old.

Sadly, as Ms. Pruitt points out, General Cinema was not destined “to be the leader in the multiplexing of America”. That distinction went instead to Kansas City-based American Multi-Cinemas, Inc. (now known of course as AMC), descendant of the family owned Durwood theatre circuit, which was originally founded in 1920. Through the 70’s, AMC made a practice of “shadowing” General Cinema, opening locations in close proximity to new GCC theatres. In the 70’s and beyond, however, General Cinema’s theatre group was far larger then AMC.

A problem that had dogged the movie exhibition business for some time, surprisingly, was a decline in the number of movies available to be shown. The Pruitt book cites industry stats that show a steady decline in the number of Hollywood films produced – from 306 in 1970 to just 199 in 1978. With the growth of the GCC chain and the continual addition of new locations (329 units with 739 screens were operating by the end of 1977), this became an ominous problem. The situation was relieved somewhat with the release of several mid-70’s blockbusters – Earthquake, The Towering Inferno, Jaws, Star Wars and as pictured above, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (the “message films” had by this time been eclipsed by disaster and fantasy films with evermore impressive special effects), but the company was still anxious for more product.

To alleviate the situation, the company decided to enter the film production business, a move they had previously resisted. In 1975, GCC entered into a joint venture with the British firm Associated TeleVision, (ATV), headed by famed entertainment mogul Sir Lew Grade, later promoted by the Queen to “Lord Grade” (They’d seen his face before –everyone was pretty sure that he was from the House of Lords), and eventually to Baron Grade in the years preceding his passing in 1998. Grade was famous for winning control of the Beatles song catalog, then selling it to the self-proclaimed “King of Pop” years later. The joint venture was named Associated General Films (AGF), and seven films would result over the next couple of years, the best known of which were The Cassandra Crossing, The Eagle Has Landed and Capricorn One. Disappointed in the results, GCC ended up selling out its interest in the joint venture to ATV. Around this same time, the company made a failed attempt to acquire Columbia Pictures, which would later become a subsidiary of the Coca-Cola Company. General Cinema did retain another subsidiary, GCC Films, whose purpose was providing funding for films by independent producers.

Through the 1980’s and 1990’s, the theatre division became an increasingly smaller piece of the General Cinema pie. In the 1980’s, GCC gained a reputation for deal-making, seeking to further diversify their business through “patient opportunism in an age of excess”, to borrow a phrase from Ms. Pruitt. In 1984, GCC took control of Carter Hawley Hale Stores, rescuing them from a hostile takeover attempt by The Limited. Carter Hawley Hale was the owner of a number of venerable department store chains, including The Broadway, The Emporium, Neiman-Marcus and New York’s famed Bergdorf Goodman, along with specialty chains such as Waldenbooks, which was promptly sold off to Kmart Corporation. In 1986, The Limited (in partnership with developer Edward DeBartolo) made another run at Carter Hawley Hale, forcing a split of the operation into two groups – The Neiman-Marcus Group (including Bergdorf Goodman) which remained under the control of General Cinema, and Carter Hawley Hale (the other department store properties), which was ultimately spun off to CHH employees.

In 1984, GCC sold its Sunkist brand to Canada Dry, then a division of R.J Reynolds Tobacco Company. Five years later, the soft drink bottling operations were sold to PepsiCo, then in the process of consolidating of its bottlers, as was Coca-Cola at the time.

The last major step in the reinvention of the company was the buyout of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, which occurred in 1991 after months of wrangling with HBJ bondholders. Harcourt, a well known publisher of textbooks, would soon constitute the largest portion, nearly half, of the company’s earnings. The following year, the company name was changed from General Cinema Corporation to Harcourt General.

The theatre business, now accounting for only 4 percent of the company’s earnings, was in steady decline, at least in terms of market position. In 1986, GCC had lost its number one position, and as Pruitt cites, would soon fall to fourth place, behind United Artists, Cineplex Odeon and AMC. In 1993, Harcourt General spun off the theatre group into a new company, called GC Companies, Inc.

In 1999, the Neiman-Marcus group was spun off from Harcourt General, with Richard Smith, whose family remained the major stockholder, remaining as chairman until the family sold its interest (12.7% of $5 billion – not bad for someone who began their career with a small chain of drive-in theatres) in 2005. In 2001, Harcourt General sold out to a European publishing firm, Reed Elsevier, who later sold it to Houghton Mifflin. GC Companies, the theatre group, continued to struggle, declaring bankruptcy in 2001. In early 2002, many of the former General Cinema chain’s theaters came under the ownership of AMC.

The GCC publicity shots above depict the following: (1) Cinema I, II, III, IV and V at the Greenspoint Mall in Houston, Texas from 1977. Cinemas IV and V are showing “Semi-Tough” and “The Goodbye Girl”, respectively (2) Ticket booth and refreshment counter from South Shore Plaza Cinema I, II, III and IV in Braintree, Massachusetts, also in 1977 (3) A wide lobby shot, also from South Shore Cinema, where John Travolta takes his place alongside the art gallery (4) Mesmerized young folks at the candy counter, unknown location, from 1979. (What do theatre candy bars cost these days, nine bucks apiece?) (5) Another candy counter scene from the same year (6) Ticket window scene, 1979 (7) Those ever-lovin’ famous seats, 1976. Below: (8) a 1976 scene from what I believe is the Chestnut Hill, Mass Cinema. GCC ran a straw poll for every presidential election, usually with uncannily accurate results, and (9) A marquee photo from 1979, featuring Caddyshack, the “Citizen Kane” of my high school years.

Additional posts on the history of General Cinema can be found at this link, or you can search by other topics at the right side of the page.

Woolworth's-America's Christmas Store

Here’s a busy scene at the downtown Houston, Texas Woolworth store, from 1964. For a great many Americans, Woolworth’s was “America’s Christmas Store”, just as the pictured Santa Claus banners say. Woolworth, like its variety store competitors, had moved beyond the 10 cents price point eons ago by this time, but most items carried were still fairly small ticket. The expanded format of the Woolco stores would allow a much greater offering of large items, including television sets and furniture.

Since the Woolco program was still in its infancy, Woolworth stores like this were still the company’s mainstay. I really like the little Christmas trees throughout, and the internally lit signage.

Kroger - Flossed in the Fifties

Around 1955, Kroger kicked its expansion program into high gear, going far beyond simply replacing existing small grocery stores with larger supermarkets. For the first time in a decade, the company moved back into an acquisition mode, buying three supermarket chains in three successive months. On May 13, Kroger announced its purchase of Henke & Pillot, an 83-year old Houston based chain of 26 stores – 18 in greater Houston, three in Beaumont, and one each in Galveston, Port Arthur, Baytown, Velasco and Orange, Texas. In June, the company (who already had a sizable group of stores operating in its Madison, Wisconsin division)acquired Krambo Food Stores, Inc., an Appleton, Wisconsin based chain with seven Milwaukee stores, four in Appleton, three in Green Bay, two each in Oshkosh and Wausau, and one each in Fond-du-Lac, Merrill, Neenah, Manitowoc , Antigo and Sheboygan (yup, there ya go!). Additionally, six more Krambos were under construction at the time. And in late July, Kroger further beefed up its Texas presence (and picked up some new stores in Arkansas and Louisiana) when it bought out Childs Food Stores, Inc., of Jacksonville, Texas. The Childs stores operated under the Childs Piggly Wiggly name. The following year, Kroger added a big chain, at least in name. In January 1956, the company bought out Big Chain Stores, Inc. a chain of seven stores based in Shreveport, Louisiana, later combining it with the Childs group. All of these newly acquired stores continued to operate under their original names for a time, fitting in with Kroger chairman Joseph B. Hall’s much-touted decentralization approach. In 1957, in describing Kroger to a Business Week interviewer, he said “we are running 27 supermarket chains”.

Once again, Kroger threw in a divestiture amidst all of these acquisitions. In September 1957, Kroger sold off its Wichita, Kansas store division, then consisting of 16 stores, to J. S. Dillon and Sons Stores Company, then headed by Ray S. Dillon, son of the company founder. The former Kroger stores gave the Dillon firm a total of 51 units in 1957, located throughout central and western Kansas and in Denver, where the Dillon stores went under the name of King Soopers. As fate would have it, the Dillon family would play a key role in Kroger’s future. In 1982, Kroger would buy out the entire Dillon organization, which had of course grown impressively in the intervening years. In 2004, David Dillon, Ray S. Dillon’s grandson, was named chairman and CEO of Kroger, a position he presently holds.

Some new markets were started from scratch as well, with the introduction of Kroger’s first stores in Birmingham, Alabama. There was growth in the existing markets as well, with Chicago, for example, being the focus of a major push. In October 1956, Kroger announced a whopping 34-store expansion in the Chicago area, trumpeted by a special section in the Chicago Tribune. New Kroger stores were already open or soon would be in several of the new major new shopping centers in the area, including Old Orchard in Skokie, Hillside Shopping Center, located in west suburban Hillside off of the brand-spanking new Congress (now called Eisenhower) Expressway, and at Harlem-Irving Plaza (Harlem Avenue and Irving Park Rd, Chicago). Other stores were announced for Park Forest, Zion, and Franklin Park to name just a few locations.

This period also saw Kroger’s entry into the world of trading stamps. In nearly all cases, trading stamps were adopted as a defensive measure by chains needed to gain a competitive edge against other chains offering …well, trading stamps. Having successfully resisted the likes of Sperry and Hutchinson and others who tried to sell the idea to them over the years, Kroger decided to create their own program when it became necessary to jump in. In 1955, Kroger joined forces with a number of non-competing food chains to form Top Value Enterprises. Eventually, Kroger would buy out its partners, gaining full control of the company. Top Value redemption centers popped up all over Krogerland, oftentimes right next to the Kroger stores themselves. Several times a year, Top Value issued thick catalogs (several of which in the 60’s and 70’s featured Norman Rockwell-painted covers) offering all manner of treasures for those who weren’t offended by the taste of the multitudes of stamps it took to fill those good old “saver books”.

Shown above are three Kroger store photos from the fifties. The first store is an unknown Illinois location. The photo’s focus is a bit soft, but the great looking store can still be appreciated. I particularly like the dual appearance of the Kroger name on the front of the store, both above and on the store windows. The second photo shows the Kroger at the new Boardman Plaza, the first DeBartolo shopping center, which opened in their hometown of Boardman, Ohio (a Youngstown suburb) in 1951. This shopping center also featured an A&P and an independent called Century Foods.

The third photo features a very proud Kroger president Joseph B. Hall in front of the chain’s brand new flagship, a 44,000 square foot (gigantic for the time – most of Kroger’s new supermarkets were less than half that size) store that opened in May, 1957 at Swayne Field Shopping Center, Kroger’s first foray into shopping center development, in Toledo, Ohio. The huge store, Kroger’s “flossy new supermarket”, was featured in a profile piece (the Hall picture is from the cover of that issue) on Hall and Kroger in an August 1957 Business Week article. An earlier New York Times article listed the Toledo store’s attributes – “Gourmet and delicatessen departments stocked with such items as pickled rooster combs and chocolate covered ants - A barbecue corner that will custom-cook ribs, chickens, hams and other meats - a smokers’ center, staffed by a tobacconist, with lighters and pipes on sale - A lunch counter for quick snacks (Which, as the BW article helpfully noted, “keeps the men out of the way while the housewives do their shopping”), and the chain’s largest frozen food department”.

Flossy. Real flossy.

The artists’ renderings below show Kroger’s three acquisition prizes from 1955.

Kmart...Eat Here and Get Gas!

You know, there’s really nothing like a Double K Burger when you’re craving that great Kmart taste! Mmmmmmm!

Yes, my friends, there really was such a thing as a “Kmart Chef”. After five years of outstanding growth, Kresge began to explore ways to leverage the success of Kmart. Though virtually all Kmarts had in-store snack bars and/or concession stands, Kresge figured that a free-standing fast food restaurant, complete with the Kmart brand name and located next to the main store, would be an effective way to snare those customers who managed to escape the store with their lunch or dinner dollars still in pocket. It was also assumed that the highly visible locations of the Kmarts – typically on high-traffic streets or adjacent to highways - would draw an ample number of customers as well. The first Kmart Chef, pictured above, was opened in October, 1967 next to the Pontiac, Michigan Kmart. Plans were announced for 10 more to open in 1968.

The stores were somewhat of a hybrid between a McDonald’s-type fast food restaurant and a cafeteria. Customers walked up to a counter (ala McDonald’s) but were given a tray to push along a stainless-steel cafeteria line. The Kmart Chefs did have interior seating, something that McDonald’s was in the process of a frenetic transition to as they replaced their famous red and white-striped walk-up drive-ins with sit-down restaurants. The initial “limited, high-turnover menu”, as Kresge described it, consisted of “hamburgers, cheeseburgers, frankfurters, fish sandwiches (gotta be ready for Lent), French fried potatoes, fried apple turnovers, assorted carbonated and fruit drinks, coffee, hot chocolate and milk”. As the outdoor sign said, hamburgers were initially 18 cents. That same year, in a controversial but fiscally necessary move, McDonald’s finally raised the price of their burgers from their traditional 15 cents to 18 cents as well.

As it turned out, only a small number of Kmart Chefs were ever opened, with the 10th store, an Albuquerque, New Mexico unit, not even opening until 1971. At that time, there were Kmart Chefs in Pontiac, Clemens and Warren MI, Erie PA, Moline IL, Wichita KS, Kansas City MO, Houston and Lubbock, TX. It was truly a random strategy, to put it charitably. The Kmart Chefs were closed down in 1974.

More successful in the long run were the Kmart gas stations. Many Kmarts had auto centers, generally free-standing units, and the addition of a Kmart-branded gas station was first tried in April, 1967 in the parking lot of an Atlanta Kmart. Pictured above is the original gas station (Check out the 100 octane gas - that stuff would probably be eight bucks a gallon now!). Two more Kmart gas stations were opened in the Metro Atlanta area the following January, beginning a strategy that Kmart has employed on and off ever since.