The Lifestyles of Winn-Dixie

Remember the early 1980’s? Big hair? Shoulder pads? Skinny ties? Huge eyeglass frames? New Wave music? Cellphones the size of cinderblocks (for the few who were lucky enough to own ‘em yet)? The smell of “Love’s Baby Soft” wafting through the air?

Well, the 80’s brought about changes in many aspects of American life, and after a couple of years had begun to make their mark on the lowly supermarket as well. The styles of the seventies, so different from what had gone before, appeared tired, grungy and long out-of-date by 1982 or so. When the time came to open new stores or revamp existing ones, major supermarket chains were opting for a very different look. Gone were the muted earth-tones, dark stained woods, Helvetica-lettered signs, and “any color as long as it’s brown” exteriors. In their place were neon, mirrors, high-gloss tile, light-colored woods, faux-metallic surfaces and “any color as long as it’s beige” exteriors. In short, it was a much brighter, shinier look, if not necessarily more tasteful.

Superficial though they might have appeared, these changes were emblematic of a cultural shift in society. This was the Reagan Era, a sharp contrast to the back-to-nature ethic and economy-induced austerity of the previous decade. The popular TV shows of the early and mid-80’s - Dynasty, Dallas, Falcon Crest, Hotel, Miami Vice and (in particular) Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous – provided a vehicle for the average American viewer to live the life of the wealthy, if only vicariously. Prosperity was “in”, whether one was experiencing it personally or not. Retail store designers, a group which seldom fails to notice trends, began to incorporate this into their new offerings. Whether they achieved “an optimistic look” or “an affluent look” is debatable, but one thing’s for sure – they poured on the glitz!

Winn-Dixie, whose conservative management style was mirrored by its conservative store designs, took a bold step into the new era with its first “Marketplace” store, a 45,000 square foot format grocery/drug combination store, which opened in Valdosta, Georgia in 1984. A number of 35,000 square foot (well above the Winn-Dixie average) “superstores” opened at same time. These new, larger stores were rife with innovations for Winn-Dixie, including vastly expanded deli and bakery departments, floral sections, new “World of Cheese” bars, Gourmet Cookery areas and “Fisherman’s Wharf” seafood departments. And of course, beef was still star of the show in the newly dubbed “Prestige Meats” section.

The décor of these new superstores was on a completely different plane from the standard-issue Winn-Dixie, where painted walls and simple cutout-lettered signage were most commonly seen. Compare the photos above with the 1977 interiors shown in the previous post. The contrast is striking.

Winn-Dixie’s sales and market position remained relatively strong through the 1980’s and early 90’s. The landscape was slowly but surely changing, however. Challenges would come from a number of corners, some uncomfortably close to home. In 1980, Sam Walton, founder and chairman of (then still strictly regional) Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., was invited to join the Winn-Dixie board of directors. For six years, Walton lent his considerable management wisdom to Winn-Dixie, while at the same time gaining a priceless education with respect to the grocery industry. In late 1986, Walton resigned from the Winn-Dixie board. Just over a year later, in March 1988, the first Wal-Mart Supercenter opened, with a full grocery department under roof. Unfortunately for Winn-Dixie, the launch of this new format coincided with a full court press by Wal-Mart into their home turf – the Deep South and Florida.

And the pressure was building from another direction as well. Lakeland, Florida-based Publix Super Markets, Inc., had long stood in the shadow of Winn-Dixie, at least where volume is concerned. Publix had a highly enviable reputation for service, elegant store design and a very loyal customer base. Through the two companies’ early history, however, Publix’s relative handful of stores compared to the giant Winn-Dixie allowed them to fly low on the official Beef People radar screen. Publix had a chainwide policy of Sunday closures until the early 1980’s, and had no stores at all outside of Florida until 1991. Over the years, the balance ever so gradually shifted as Publix’s growing store count inched closer. In early 1962, for example, Winn-Dixie had over 200 stores in Florida, nearly 400 outside of Florida, while Publix had 74 in Florida, zero outside. In 1972, Winn-Dixie had 197 stores in Florida, 562 outside to Publix’s 174 in Florida, still zero outside, and in 1982, Winn-Dixie had 405 in Florida, 817 outside. While Publix grabbed the Florida lead that year, all of their 438 stores remained safely within the Sunshine State borders. (Today, after the voluminous dust of the last few years has settled, Winn-Dixie has 358 stores in Florida, 162 outside. Publix has a whopping 719 in Florida, 283 outside. These are the current figures on the companies’ websites.)

By the mid-90’s, Winn-Dixie was in a dreadful situation in its key markets, competing against Wal-Mart on price and Publix on service and style. As the late New York Times writer Constance Hays put it, “In both cases, (Winn-Dixie) was struggling against nimbler, more experienced foes.” Through the 80’s and 90’s, though, the company made attempts to compete on both fronts. In 1987, Winn-Dixie resurrected the “Table Supply” name for a discount warehouse format, but it proved to be short-lived, with five of the six stores launched closing down after just two years. Years later, another warehouse discount format would be launched, SaveRite, on a much wider basis. On the other hand, through the 90’s Winn-Dixie continued to open larger, more deluxe stores, but it was a slow and expensive process. By 1990, only a third of the chain’s 1,200 stores were over 35,000 square feet, and there were still a fairly small number of the 45,000 square foot upscale Marketplace stores. Far too many of the chain’s stores were too old, too small and too dated.

The first years of the 21st century could only be described as a disaster for Winn-Dixie, with sales and profits spiraling downward. Between 1998 and 2003, the company closed more than 200 stores, and in 2003 alone, Winn-Dixie stock lost nearly half its value. That year, many of the Atlanta stores, including several of the elegant Marketplace units were converted to the SaveRite warehouse format. In February 2005, faced with the toughest challenges in the company’s proud 70-year history, Winn-Dixie filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The following June, the painful details of the company’s reorganization were announced. Over 300 of the company’s 913 stores would be closed, and Winn-Dixie would exit four states altogether – Tennessee, Virginia, North and South Carolina. The latter two states in particular had contained key company markets for decades. In addition, Winn-Dixie would say goodbye to Atlanta after some 45 years.

A year later, under the guidance of new CEO Peter Lynch, a former Albertsons executive, Winn-Dixie emerged from bankruptcy. Maintaining a smaller store base of some 520 units, the company progress has been well noted by Wall Street, which by and large seems to like Winn-Dixie again. One initiative the company has undertaken is to streamline its stable of private label brands to just a few, with two primary ones – a simple “Winn-Dixie” for most items, and in a nod to company history, “Winn and Lovett” as a premium brand. Peter Lynch’s stated goal is admirably straightforward – “To make Winn-Dixie a better company.” The company’s new tagline underscores this goal – “Getting better all the time”, which for me instantly conjures up the 1967 Beatles song.

Of course, an 80’s song would fit the bill pretty well also!

Pictured above are four Winn-Dixie Marketplace interior views. Meat and seafood departments from the first store, in Valdosta, Georgia, in 1984, followed by a produce department view from 1985 and a typical “Cheese Shop” from the following year. Below are two Marketplace exteriors, from 1986 and 1993 respectively. The last view shows a friendly-looking crew from a 1986 standard (non-Marketplace) store. I find myself wishing they had added a few more departments just to see what additional uniform colors they could come up with.

The Boomin' Winn-Dixie

“Not much time for banjo strummin’
For the mills are busy hummin’
Pine tree crops – citrus, cattle –
And chemicals, too,
Cover Dixie like the dew!
Our food business, too, is zoomin’
‘Cause this NEW Southland’s
really boomin’!”

- advertising verse from 1955

Up until the mid-20th century, it would be accurate to say that the industrial production of the Southern states lagged behind other parts of the country. This was the era before the “rust belt” became rusty, and a majority of manufactured goods still came from above the Mason-Dixon Line. Take a look at most any mass produced item from that time, and if it lists a city of origin, it’s likely as not to read “Chicago”, “Rochester, N.Y.”, “Cinti, O. (Cincinnati)” or some other northern or upper Midwest location. Although many companies had established west coast branch factories to save on freight costs, the output of the South remained mostly agricultural in nature, with relatively few exceptions.

Around the mid-1940’s, this began to change rapidly. The lower operating costs of the largely non-union South formed a powerful enticement for companies to expand or relocate there. Civic leaders of towns large and small bent over backwards to offer low tax rates and cheap, plentiful, rail-accessible land on which sprawling single–story manufacturing plants (with acres of parking space) could be built. As a result, many major companies forsook their old, inefficient, multi-story urban factories in cold climes and built gleaming new facilities among the green-meadowed landscapes of places where winter coats wore out far less frequently.

Of course, all of this new development required a workforce, which came from a number of sources. First, many local area workers left the family farm to work in the new factories. Secondly, a large number of northern workers, of both blue and white collar persuasions, relocated to the South, where opportunity beckoned. By the mid-50’s, hundreds of companies had planted their flags there. The textile industry (clothing, carpet, towels, linens, etc.), which already had a significant presence there, moved south in near entirety during those years. Chemicals, aerospace and other forms of high technology would be welcomed into the mix as well. By the mid-50’s, the phrase “New South” had come into widespread use (which continued well into the 1970’s) to describe the new boomland.

Winn-Dixie, an enthusiastic corporate cheerleader for the New South, was eager to capitalize on this growth, continuing to expand aggressively both through acquisition and new store construction through the rest of the 1950’s. In June 1956, the company purchased Ketner-Milner Stores, a 24-unit chain of supermarkets in the Salisbury and Raleigh, North Carolina areas. Ketner-Milner had only been formed the previous year, with the merger of the 10-store Ketner’s Supermarkets and Milner’s Piggly Wiggly.

Interestingly, the Ketner-Milner transaction became the impetus behind what would eventually emerge as a formidable competitor to Winn-Dixie. While Glenn Ketner accepted a vice presidency at Winn-Dixie, his brother Ralph soon resigned, eager to control his own destiny in the food business. In 1957, Ralph Ketner, along with another brother, Brown, and Wilson Smith opened the first Food Town supermarket in Salisbury. Growing slowly at first, Food Town (later renamed Food Lion) would become a dominant player over time.

And Winn-Dixie was expanding in the other direction as well – just after the Ketner-Milner buyout, the company acquired H.G. Hill Stores, a 42-store chain that brought the company into New Orleans, Baton Rouge and other key Louisiana markets, as well as Hattiesburg, Gulfport and Biloxi, Mississippi.

All the while, the company continued to build new stores, averaging some 60 a year by the end of the decade. A 1959 Consumers Research magazine article featured a humorous quote from Winn-Dixie president A.D. Davis on the company’s “scientific” approach to determining ideal new store locations: “We have a radar detector device that picks up diapers on the line in the back yard, and when a great amount of diapers appear on the radar screen as we are driving through a certain area, we know this is the place where we ought to have a store”.

Obviously, whatever they were doing was paying off. In mid-1960, Winn-Dixie had over 500 stores, organized into the following divisions – Montgomery, Alabama – 55 stores, New Orleans – 43 stores, Greenville, S.C. – 110 stores, Raleigh, N.C. – 54 stores and Louisville – 33 stores. Then of course were the Florida divisions: Jacksonville – 83 stores, Miami – 76 stores and Tampa – 60 stores. If the benefits of the “New South” industrial boom may have been felt to a lesser extent in Florida, they were more than offset by the burgeoning tourist economy. In this regard, the best was yet to come.

In many areas, it must have seemed that new Winn-Dixies (and Kwik Cheks) were popping up all over. Those diapers flapping in the breeze were a sure sign one was on the way.

The photos above, from the Florida Photographic Collection, show an interesting variety of Winn-Dixie stores from the late 1950’s. The locations are as follows: (1) a brand new Tallahassee store, 1959, (2) Cedar Hills Shopping Center store, Jacksonville, also 1959, (3) Lakewood Shopping Center, pictured here previously, Jacksonville, 1959 again, (4) a downtown location in Deland, FL, 1956, and lastly, (5) from 1959, a close up of an older Tallahassee location, quaint with its oil-stained curbside parking spaces, “guess your weight” machine and wooden doorframes. The names of two well-known Winn-Dixie brands, Dixie Darling and Astor, are painted on the transom glass. More indicators (as if more are needed) that this scene is from a long-gone era can be found in the price of the Dixie Darling bread – the "...and a half-cent" price, along with the very fact that any price would be painted on glass. Definitely from a pre-inflationary era.

The Premiere of General Cinema

I’m a fan of the old major-city movie palaces of the 1920’s and 30’s. Those majestic structures with ornate terra cotta facades, soaring marble-clad lobbies, gigantic auditoriums lined with sculptures, and huge stages with curtains that look like they were designed for royalty – you get the idea. In their early days, they often featured a complete, multi-act live show, featuring comedians, dancers and bands followed by a movie program – a newsreel, cartoon (or a Three Stooges or Our Gang two-reeler) and the feature film. “Going to the movies” in major cities in that era would be more accurately be described as “going to the show”. It was easily a 4 to 5 hour long event.

During the depression and war years, hard times forced the cutback and eventual elimination of the live shows, leaving only the movie program portion. Built “for the ages”, the economic model for this type of theatre was pretty much shot by the early 1950’s. Some of the reasons were the same as those behind the closing of downtown variety stores – declining downtowns, increased crime, lousy parking and other negatives. Added to this were factors more directly associated with theater operation - high labor costs (for large usher staffs, curtain operators, etc.) and the enormous maintenance costs of those beautiful old buildings, among other things. By the time I came around, most of these theatres were gone – either torn down, or boarded up, or converted to another use such as a bowling alley. Most that could still be nominally considered “theatres” were showing X-rated or exploitation films.

No, for many of my generation - those of us who began our moviegoing habit in the 60’s, 70’s or very early 80's, “going to the movies” meant pulling up to a white, boxy looking building of simple modern design with the lone word “CINEMA” (occasionally followed by a few roman numerals) as its only identification. They were located next to the mall, or to Korvettes, or whatever the local shopping center might have been. These were the theatres of the General Cinema Corporation.

Though his company would eventually become known as the pioneer of the ever-present “shopping center theatre”, General Cinema’s founder enjoyed earlier success as a proprietor of standard downtown theatres, and later on of drive-in theatres, that pop culture icon of the 40’s and 50’s - an institution which played no small part in the demise of the aforementioned movie palaces. The company that would eventually become General Cinema Corporation was founded by Philip Smith, a Syracuse, New York native, who moved to Boston in 1918 upon being hired to operate the National theatre, a unit of the Keith-Albee-Orpheum (later known as Radio-Keith-Orpheum, or “RKO”) theatre circuit. Smith later leased the theater to operate it on his own, and by 1922 had formed his own company, Smith Theatrical Enterprises. By 1930, Smith was operating some 18 theatres in the New England area.

By the early thirties, as the depression entered its darkest days, Smith was in search of a unique approach to the film exhibition business, something that would set his company apart from the pack, giving it a better chance of surviving those tough years. When Smith learned of the new “outdoor amphitheatre” for automobiles that opened in Camden, New Jersey in 1933, he was intrigued, and closely studied the drive-in concept over the next couple of years. Confident, both in his aptitude for the theatre business and in the potential of the new concept, Smith eventually made the decision to jump in.

Joining forces with financier David Stoneman and his family, Smith started a new company called Mid-West Drive-In Theatres, Inc. This may seem like an ironic name for a Boston-based enterprise, but the fact was that most of their early drive-in theaters were indeed opened in the Midwest, where Smith saw the greatest potential for the business. Mid-West’s first theatres were opened in the Detroit and Cleveland areas in the spring of 1938. The company grew slowly over the next 12 years, constrained (as were other drive-in operators) by the lack of access to first-run motion pictures. A series of lawsuits aimed at the famous ”studio system” – the cartel of studios who owned their own theatres, which included 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., Paramount and MGM (the Loew’s theatre chain), eventually leveled the playing field for the drive-ins.

In 1950, Mid-West Drive-In, with Phil Smith’s son Richard now a full partner in the business, launched a major expansion drive. At this point there were 14 drive-in theatres in addition to the company’s traditional New England downtown theatres, and the company had footholds in Omaha, Des Moines, Pittsburgh, Gary, Indiana, and Chicago (La Grange, on Route 66) in addition to their established Ohio and Michigan locations. Soon afterward they began opening drive-ins in the northeast for the first time, including three in New Jersey and one in Natick, Massachusetts, near their home turf. More were to come. Bettye Pruitt, author of the book “The Making of Harcourt General”, an excellent history of GCC which serves as the basis for much of the information here, notes that “by 1952, Massachusetts would have the most drive-ins per square mile of any state in the nation”.

By this time, Mid-West was also involved in “drive-ins” of another sort, specifically drive-in restaurants, another institution that was surging in popularity at the time. Their first “Richard’s Drive-In”, named after Richard Smith, Philip’s son, opened adjacent to one of the company’s Detroit area drive-in theatres in 1946. Soon more restaurants would be built in the Detroit, Cleveland and Chicago areas. In Chicago, Richard’s units were opened in Lincolnwood, Wilmette and Evergreen Park, among other locations. Later on, the chain would expand into the northeast, following the company’s theater development. The menu was typical of carhop joints of the time-hamburgers, fries, chicken sandwiches and “frappes”, (which translates to “milkshake” in most areas outside New England). Larry Cultrera’s “Diner Hotline” website has a great article and pictures of some of the Richard’s units. If you haven’t checked out his site, it’s a real gem – a great look at the golden (and present) age of the diner, along with other pre fast food- era restaurants. There were other restaurant ventures as well- Peter Pan Snack Shops, a 7–unit chain that Mid-West would buy and expand to 18 units, Jeff’s Charcoal Broil, named after Phil Smith’s grandson, and the Amy Joy Doughnut and Pancake Houses, an early competitor to Dunkin’ Donuts and Mister Donut in the New England area, named, of course after his granddaughter.

In 1951, Mid-West opened their first shopping center indoor theatre, a move that in retrospect started the company on its destiny. In 1950, plans were announced for an innovative new shopping center, to be opened in Framingham, Massachusetts and known as Middlesex Center. The name was changed to “Shoppers World” prior to its opening, and the new center received considerable coverage in the retail and architectural trade press. Bettye Pruitt quoted Architectural Record on the new shopping center’s design – it was “laid out as a carnival midway, with the main attractions (a theater and a department store) at either end”. The “department store” in this case was the funky, flying-saucer-like Jordan Marsh store. This website has an excellent history of Shoppers World, along with an in-depth look at the original GCC Shoppers World Cinema, with great photos of the original and expanded versions of the theatre. They also appear to have mirrored the defunct GCC website, complete with a listing of the chain’s locations as of 1983 and 1999. The Framingham Cinema’s original business was slow, and as Ms. Pruitt points out in a fascinating anecdote, for a couple of summers, “Smith rented the auditorium to the cartoonists Al Capp (Li’l Abner) and Lee Falk (Mandrake the Magician), who ran a summer theater program in the Boston area, bringing in Hollywood actors such as Mae West, Melvyn Douglas and Marlon Brando to star in their productions”. Within a couple of years, however, the cinema was doing much better, and presumably the cartoonists had to look elsewhere. More importantly, Mid-West began to consider the possibility of opening shopping center theatres on a large scale.

In 1960, the company, now renamed General Drive-In, went public. The restaurants were spun-off as a separate operation, still under the control of the Smith family, allowing the new entity’s business to focus strictly on theatres. For a while, that is – that same year, the company decided to enter another recreation field – as an operator of bowling centers. This was spurred on by a nationwide decline in movie attendance, due in large part to a continued drop in new film releases, from roughly 450 a year in 1948 to only 350 a year in 1960. By 1963, the company owned 15 “Holiday Lanes” bowling centers, mostly in the New England states.

In 1961, General Drive-In suffered two tragic losses – Phil Smith, the company founder, died at age 62 in July, and Morris Lurie, his son-in-law, passed away around the same time. Lurie was largely responsible for running the family’s restaurant businesses. Forced to assume the responsibilities of two other top executives in addition to his own, Richard Smith decided to sell off the restaurant group within the next couple of years, in order to concentrate fully on the company’s shopping center theatre business. When the buyer defaulted on the purchase, Smith continued to operate them for several more years before a suitable new buyer could be found.

The bowling centers proved to be an unhappy venture, due in part to the difficulty the company found in organizing bowling leagues, the lifeblood of any bowling alley, in the New England area, as compared to the more industrial, factory-rich Midwest. Also, “ten-pin” (today’s standard sized bowling pins) bowling was relatively new to the area, and didn’t have the following that locally favored “candlepin” (cylindrical pins) or “duckpin” (short, squatty pins) bowling had. In 1965, GCC began to put the bowling centers up for sale.

The shopping center cinemas were a completely different story, however, and very quickly became the company’s mainstay. At the end of 1961, the company had eight shopping center theatres, including new locations in Pompano Beach, Sarasota, Daytona Beach and Orlando, Florida, and Menlo Park, New Jersey. They also bought the existing Plaza Cinema in Memphis that year. The Chicago, St. Louis and Cleveland markets were entered the following year, and many more followed in quick succession - Northern California (San Mateo’s Hillsdale Mall, the first of many NorCal units), Denver, Detroit, Charlotte, Minneapolis, Dallas, Houston, Akron, Cincinnati and Milwaukee, among other metro areas, by 1966.

While the drive-in business grew steadily – from 26 units in 1963 to 49 in 1968, the shopping center theatres exploded – from only 10 in 1963 to 319 ten years later. In a nod to the obvious, the company changed its name to General Cinema Corporation in 1964.

Interestingly, GCC did not have to invest a great deal of resources to come up with new locations, as was often the case in the history of many great retail chains of the mid-20th century. A number of examples come to mind – from McDonald’s Ray Kroc or Publix’s George Jenkins flying all over in company–owned prop planes, feverishly scouting new locations on which to plant their respective flags, eventually setting up sophisticated market research departments as their businesses grew. Instead, within just a few years, mall and shopping center developers were flocking to the company to offer them prime sites, and as long as the terms were good, the company generally went for it. This was a big reason behind the very wide geographic reach that GCC reached in such a short time. As Ms. Pruitt writes, “Where competitors might carefully research the socio-economic characteristics of potential theater locations, General Cinema left that kind of analysis to others”.

The GCC theatres had a fairly uniform look, designed by architect William Reisman. With their white-painted steel framed and red upholstered seats, they were certainly austere compared to the ornate theatres of years past. The lobbies, as shown in the previous post, did have a nice sense of style, now breathlessly referred to of course as “Mid-Century Modern”. One GCC innovation that permanently changed the industry (for better or worse depending on your point of view) was the “shadowbox” screen. Gone were the theatre curtains (and the projectionists’ union members who operated them) and the stage itself. In their place was a simple white wall with a recessed portion for the screen, somewhat akin to a “tray ceiling” tilted up on its side.

A huge step forward for the company was the introduction of the “twin” cinema, the first of which was opened at the Northshore Shopping Center in Peabody, Massachusetts in 1962. While this obviously enabled a location to show two different pictures at once, it also allowed it to utilize two screens for the same film, with staggered showtimes, in the case of a blockbuster like “The Sound of Music”. Of course, the other big advantage to the twin was the fact that the two auditoriums shared a common lobby, concession area and projection room, minimizing the added incremental operating cost. Soon after the Peabody unit opened, twins followed in Charlotte, NC (the first GCC theatre in the state) and in Fort Lauderdale. In 1966, the first Chicago-area twin (a third theatre was added in 1971) opened at the new Ford City Mall. As time went on, more and more GCC theatres were opened with two or more screens.

As far back as 1962, Time Magazine hailed the shopping center theatre, acknowledging General Drive-In’s (General Cinema’s) leadership role in the trend - “Now the movie theater operators, who have been shuttering one downtown palace after another, have latched on to the shopping center as the place where the people are (or can get to)”. Throughout the 1960’s, an ever-growing percentage of the American public could easily “get to” a General Cinema theatre.

The six artist's renderings above, showing typical GCC exterior configurations, are circa 1964. (The film listed on the marquee in the third photo, “Tunes of Glory” was actually a 1960 release.) Below is an unknown Florida location, in a circa 1963-64 photo, appearing here courtesy of Leon Reed, whose father took the photo during a family vacation. Added bonuses are the Christmas decorations (Christmas in Florida – now we’re talkin'!), the Woolworth’s and Mr. Reed’s Ford wagon and Airstream trailer. I believe the location might be Miami’s Cutler Ridge Shopping Center, but don’t really know for sure.

What's the Frequency, Kmart?

The transformation that the Kresge company underwent with the introduction of Kmart was dramatic, to put it very mildly. Among the most impressive aspects were the sheer speed and scale of the rollout. Once the final decision was made to push forward with Kmart, Kresge president Harry Cunningham gave a mandate to Kresge’s real estate department that at least 60 leases be secured for new Kmart sites to accommodate the planned rapid-fire growth. As mentioned, there were 18 Kmarts in operation at the end of 1962. 35 would be added in 1963, 35 more in 1964, and 34 more in 1965. By the end of the decade, there would be over 270 Kmarts in all regions of the United States, as well as Canada and Puerto Rico.

Aside from four small-footprint stores that were used in part for development purposes (Kresge called them “bantam” K-marts), the average square footage of the earliest Kmarts was 60,000, growing to 75,000 within a couple of years and to over 90,000 square feet by the end of the 60’s. In the following decade, they would consistently exceed 120,000 square feet.

The simple, rectangular, box-like design of the Kmart stores was a definite aid in the speed at which the stores opened, with average construction time at a brief six months per store. Another key factor was Kresge’s insistence on building free-standing stores in most cases, thereby avoiding frustrating (and costly) delays at the hands of shopping center developers. Kmarts were often located near other stores, but were rarely connected to them.

Kresge sought to open at least two (often more) stores in quick succession within a given market in order to maximize advertising dollars. The first major market, for obvious reasons, was the Detroit metro area, Kresge’s hometown, where seven Kmarts were operating within the first two years. Atlanta, Denver, Knoxville, Fresno and Charlotte were among the other early multiple-store markets.

The store carried a full line of merchandise, including clothes, kitchen items, home improvement and auto accessories , sporting goods, a camera department (remember the “Focal” brand?), electronics (or “Television and Hi-Fi” as such departments were then commonly called), jewelry, and in many cases, a full-line supermarket. A number of the departments were leased, among them sporting goods, cameras and jewelry.

Most notably the supermarkets were leased, from a number of different operators. The early Kmart supermarket lessees were moderate-sized grocery firms, including Borman Food Stores, Inc., the first operator of the some of the K-mart supermarkets in Michigan, Illinois and Indiana. Even small family-owned grocers got in on some of the action. When the Benton Harbor, Michigan Kmart opened in 1963, for example, the supermarket portion was operated by John Sassano, an independent grocer based in Hobart, Indiana. The largest operator of Kmart supermarkets would be Detroit-based Allied Supermarkets, who signed on with the company in June 1964. Allied up to that point had operated food stores in the Midwest, Texas and Oklahoma under the names Wrigley and Humpty Dumpty, among others. They would eventually operate grocery units in a great many Kmart stores all over the country well into the 1970’s. The supermarket areas averaged 20-24,000 square feet and were all thoroughly branded “Kmart”, regardless of the operator. There even was a line of private label items, including Kmart potato chips!

The stores were big, fairly colorful, and most importantly featured discount prices across the board. And then there were the “special buys” (later called “bluelight” specials) to drive high-volume sales on select items. Kmart’s selling prices were set at Kresge headquarters in Detroit, and interestingly, the individual Kmart store managers were given the authority to lower prices to beat local competition, but they were forbidden to raise them. “Charge It!” banners abounded.
Customers showed up en masse, and most of them instantly became regulars. A retailing legend was born.

The photos, dating from late 1962/early 1963, show some of the earliest Detroit area Kmarts, including an exterior view (the Kmart logo would be tweaked slightly on future stores), and views of various departments. The woman shopping in the supermarket area resembles Barbara Billingsley, TV’s Mrs. Cleaver. She’s shopping the detergent aisle, and if you look carefully you can see some boxes of Tide, that most photogenic of consumer products, to her lower right. There's a mezzanined furniture area visible behind the camera department, a feature of a number of early stores. I find the last photo very touching, because it seems to feature a real-life mother and daughter, not professional models. The mom looks like the kind who would have had fresh cookies baking in the oven when you showed up home from school.