Meyer saw these entertaining promotions as ways of getting customers into stores during cash-starved times. Throughout the 1930s, Meyer ran a series of aggressive promotions that highlighted the company's low prices. This led to the opening of the Hollywood store, which included an off-street parking lot and an automobile lubrication and oil service. Meyer did an informal survey and found that many customers lived in the Hollywood section of Portland, about five miles from downtown. Finding that customers were often double-parking in front of his downtown stores and getting ticketed in the process, Meyer would pay the tickets. The Hollywood store marked Meyer's recognition of the growing importance of the car in retailing. Meyer opened four new stores between 19: a toiletry store, a department store in the outlying Portland neighborhood of Hollywood, and his first stores outside Portland, in the towns of Salem and Astoria, Oregon. The company prospered despite the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression. The store's lower labor costs meant lower prices, and Meyer's reputation as a value merchandiser was established. Then, in 1928, he opened what many regard as the world's first self-service drugstore. Across the street from the parent store, he opened a packaged food store selling sugar, dry beans, rice, macaroni, spaghetti, coffee, and dried fruits. In 1923, Fred Meyer incorporated his business in Oregon, and a second store was opened that featured grocery and dairy products.įred Meyer continued expanding throughout the 1920s. Its seven departments included meat, delicatessen, coffee, lunch, homemade mayonnaise, grocery, and tobacco. The store, which opened in 1922, had 20 employees, with Meyer serving as buyer and manager. In the early 1920s, the center of commercial activity moved uptown, and Meyer moved with it, consolidating his several specialty businesses into a single location that became the flagship store for the Fred Meyer chain. Meyer snapped up their properties and soon was landlord, and sometimes operator, of several specialty food operations. The Java Coffee Company, later renamed the Mission Tea Company, prospered, while many neighboring businesses succumbed to the uncertain economics of the time. Alaska was overrun with would-be entrepreneurs, however, and Meyer returned to Portland and founded the Java Coffee Company, selling coffee, tea, and spices from a storefront in the market district. In a few years, he moved to Alaska to seek other business opportunities. The horse-drawn route prospered, but young Grubmeyer, who eventually changed his name to Fred G. In 1908, 22-year-old Frederick Grubmeyer, son of a Brooklyn grocer, moved to Portland and began selling coffee to workers at the farms and lumber camps that surrounded the burgeoning town of Portland. Meyer, who guided the company until his death in 1978. The $13.5 billion deal secured Kroger's position as the largest grocery chain in the United States. The company and its subsidiaries, including Fred Meyer Jewelers, were purchased by The Kroger Co. Fred Meyer significantly increased its holdings in 19 by acquiring Smith's Food & Drug Centers Inc., Quality Food Centers Inc., and Food 4 Less Holdings Inc. It has approximately 130 stores, ranging from 130,000 to 200,000 square feet in size, that provide over 225,000 food, apparel, and general merchandise products to shoppers in the Northwest. operates the third-largest group of supercenters in the United States. Incorporated: 1923 Employees: 92,000 Sales: $14.9 billion (1998) NAIC: 452110 Department Stores 452910 Warehouse Clubs and Superstoresįred Meyer Stores, Inc. Wholly Owned Subsidiary of The Kroger Co. 3800 Southeast 22nd Avenue Portland, Oregon 97202 U.S.A.
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