Giant Eagle

Giant Eagle is a chain of supermarkets operating in western Pennsylvania and the Midwest. The company was founded in 1931 and is the number-one grocery store chain in the region, as well as the 49th-largest retailer in the United States.

Origins and merger
The first Eagle Grocery was opened by the Goldstein, Porter, and Chait families in Pittsburgh in 1918. The store was successful, and expanded into a chain of 125 stores during the 1920's. However, in 1928, the families decided to sell their store to Kroger, agreeing to stay out of the grocery business for three years.

Meanwhile, two other local families, Moravitz and Weizenbaum, launched their own grocery store chain called OK Grocery. After their time was up, the Eagle founders joined forces with the OK Grocery founders and created a new chain of supermarkets called Giant Eagle. The first store opened in 1936, and many more opened across western Pennsylvania during the Great Depression. In 1968, the company acquired the former Kroger warehouse in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania.

Expansion
Giant Eagle was exclusively a Pennsylvanian chain until 1981 when they acquired Tamarkin, a retail and wholesale grocery business in Ohio. Tamarkin operated stores under the Valu King name which were promptly renamed Giant Eagle. The following year, in 1982, Tamarkin shareholder Michael Monus partnered with Giant Eagle CEO David Shapira to create Phar-Mor, a chain of big-box discount drug stores. In 1984, Kroger shut down its Pittsburgh division due to labor union issues. Some of them were acquired by Giant Eagle.

The first Giant Eagle Fuel station opened outside a Youngstown, Ohio location in 1995. In January 2003, Giant Eagle announced that it would be merging its 13 gas stations with Crossroads, a 26-store chain of convenience stores and gas stations headquartered in Belle Vernon and founded in 1985. The new stores took on the name GetGo. As of 2021, GetGo now has 264 locations, including 56 in Indiana acquired from Ricker's in 2018.

In 1997, the company acquired Riser Foods, a Cleveland-area retailer which operated stores as Rini-Rego Stop-n-Shop. The stores, which were independently owned and operated by local families, became a subsidiary of Giant Eagle. The families formed International Seaway Foods as a holding company for the stores. The following year, Giant Eagle acquired Seaway and the Stop-n-Shop stores were renamed Giant Eagle.

In January 2002, it was announced that Giant Eagle had acquired six franchised County Market stores from Tony Rivellino and Mike Giovinazzo. Four of the stores — two in Frederick, and one each in Hagerstown and La Vale — were in Maryland, marking Giant Eagle's entrance into that state. The other two County Market locations were in Johnstown and Somerset, Pennsylvania.

The company announced in December 2003 its plans to acquire seven stores from Big Bear following that chain's parent company Penn Traffic following for bankruptcy. The stores would more than double Giant Eagle's presence in Columbus, a market they had entered three years prior. Shortly thereafter, they acquired an eighth location.

Recent history
On June 29, 2006, the first two Giant Eagle Market District locations were opened in Bethel Park and the Shadyside neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The stores follow a more upscale and gourmet model than regular Giant Eagle stores, with domestic and imported meats, Thai cuisine, a barista, fresh fudge and chocolate, a salsa bar, and dry-aged Angus beef. The stores also feature more traditional supermarket departments, such as a pharmacy, bank, photo center, and dry cleaner. As of 2023, there are 13 Market District locations, as well as two smaller-format Market District Express stores.

In December 2008, Giant Eagle revived Tamarkin's Valu King banner with a store in Eastlake, Ohio. The store was a former Tops and used a discount, no-frills format. Products sold by the store included health and beauty aids, bulk foods, dairy, frozen foods, and beer and wine. Additional stores were later opened in Ravenna and Brooklyn, Ohio, as well as Johnstown and Erie, Pennsylvania.

Another new discount concept was rolled out in late 2012 with the opening of the first Good Cents store in Ross Township, Pennsylvania. The store was designed to compete with Aldi and Bottom Dollar Food. It sold smaller quantities of product at lower prices, and did not provide plastic bags for customers. Unlike those stores, however, Good Cents featured more service departments like a cheese shop. In May 2013, the Valu King stores were renamed Good Cents, beginning with the original Eastlake location.

On February 25, 2015, Giant Eagle announced that all Good Cents locations would be closing. The reason for the closure was cited as "difficult[y] to successfully deliver the shopping experience customers have come to expect from Good Cents". All locations were sold or closed by March 2, 2015. None of the locations were kept by Giant Eagle and renamed. In December 2016, Giant Eagle acquired an abandoned retail property in McCandless, Pennsylvania, which Walmart had shown interest in. The property was acquired to prevent the Walmart from opening and potentially taking away from the business of the existing Giant Eagle nearby. The following week, Walmart announced that they decided not to pursue the development of a Supercenter on the property. The Trader Horn and book store on the property were eventually demolished and replaced by an assisted living facility.

Resources

 * Giant Eagle/List of locations
 * Giant Eagle/Exterior designs
 * Giant Eagle/Decor guide