Alpha Beta was a chain of supermarkets in the Southwestern United States. Stores under this brand existed between 1917 and 1995. Former Alpha Beta stores have all been purchased by other grocery chains and rebranded.
History
Before Alpha Beta was the name of a store, it was the name of a marketing concept used in grocery stores founded by Albert and Hugh Gerrard. It referred to organizing the groceries in the store in alphabetical order. The Gerrards applied this idea to their flagship grocery store, Triangle Grocerteria, in 1915.
Then in 1917, they opened the first Alpha Beta store in Pomona, in eastern Los Angeles County, California. The company also launched a series of coffee shops named Alphy's (a knockoff of the more formal Alpha Beta name) with dozens around southern California.[1] They were eventually sold; many became Denny's.
The company was bought by American Stores in 1961. Skaggs Drug Centers bought American Stores in 1979 and assumed the American Stores name. Combined food and drug stores in Alpha Beta territory were re-branded as Skaggs Alpha Beta. In 1984, American Stores bought The Jewel Companies, Inc., which had owned