Giant Food (Landover)

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Old-School Giant trailers in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware

Disambiguation: Giant Food (Carlisle), sister chain serving Pennsylvania

Giant Food, Inc. is a regional grocery chain based in Landover, Maryland, United States. The chain was founded in 1936 by N.M. Cohen and Samuel Lehrman and was bought into the Ahold fold in 1998. The chain continues to serve as a grocery destination with stores in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and the District of Columbia as a subsidiary of Ahold Delhaize USA.

Slogans[edit | edit source]

  • The Quality Food People (19xx-2018)
  • "We Care About You." (1980s-1990s)
  • "That's My Giant" (1980s-1990s)
  • "Fresh Ideas. Great Values." (199x-2004)
  • "You've Got a Giant on Your Side" (2004-2005)
  • My Giant (2016-2018)
  • "The Little Things are Giant" (2018-)

Super Giant (1957)[edit | edit source]

Save Right[edit | edit source]

Save Right was Giant's warehouse deep-discount concept. It was initially piloted in 1980 at three locations, but these stores would ultimately revert to Giant in 1983.

Super G[edit | edit source]

Super G was Giant's banner for stores located outside Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia, as well as their marquee for store-brand products following this expansion. The first Super G opened in Bear, Delaware in 1994 and additional stores would open in New Jersey and Pennsylvania in the years following.

Upon the acquisition of Giant-MD by Ahold in 1998, Super G locations in Pennsylvania were divested due to overlap with Ahold's Giant-PA chain, with the exception of store #251 in Devon (which closed a year later). While the chain continued to expand in Delaware and New Jersey, the merger of operations between Giant and Stop & Shop led the brand to exit New Jersey in 2005; several Super Gs were closed or sold, while additional Super Gs were converted to Stop & Shop. Delaware stores continued using the name until they were remodeled to the Super Giant concept by 2009.

Rituals Coffee Shop[edit | edit source]

The concept was first piloted at their Clarksville, Maryland location. Through 2005, a number of new stores featured the concept. It was phased out after a new deal was signed with Starbucks in 2006.

Super Giant (2005)[edit | edit source]

Following the operations merger with Stop & Shop in 2004, store design was mainstreamed into that of said chain. The Super Stop & Shop concept would be adapted to Giant-Landover in 2005, with the first such location opening in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of Washington, D.C. that year. In the following year, the concept would expand to a number of new and remodeled stores.

Upon the introduction of Giant's new logo in 2008, this banner would be phased

Store numbering[edit | edit source]

From its founding, Giant utilized a traditional store numbering system based on a store's chronology in the planning process. When Ahold consolidated Giant-MD's operations with those of sister chain Stop & Shop's in 2004, the numbering format was reorganized by state and for compatibility with other Ahold chains.

  • Delaware: 385-399, 2350-2374
  • District of Columbia: 2375-2399
  • Maryland: 100-199, 300-374, 2300-2349
  • New Jersey: 800-899
  • Virginia: 171, 200-299, 2700-2799

Starting in 2008, an additional "2" was added to store numbers for new locations. Despite the chains having returned to solitary operations in 2011, this numbering system remains in place as of 2021.

Resources[edit | edit source]