Genuardi's

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Genuardi's Family Markets

Company type	Subsidiary
Industry	Retail
Founded	1920
Defunct	2012 (as a chain) 2015 (all locations)
Fate	Acquired by Safeway in 2000 Supermarkets sold to other owners between 2011 and 2015
Headquarters	East Norriton Township, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Number of locations	Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, U.S.
Products	Bakery, dairy, deli, floral, frozen foods, general grocery, meat, produce, seafood, snacks, Starbucks, and Western Union.
Parent	Safeway
Website	Official website (2006 archive) at the Wayback Machine (archived March 20, 2006)

Genuardi's Family Markets L.P. was a chain of supermarkets located in the Northeastern United States. The store was family-owned. In 2000, it was purchased by Safeway. Its headquarters was in East Norriton Township, Pennsylvania in Montgomery County.^[1][2][3]

After many of its remaining stores were sold or closed, there was a Safeway-owned store under the former chain's name located in Audubon, Pennsylvania that remained open until May 2015.^[4]

History[edit]

20th century[edit]

In 1920, Gaspare and Josephine Genuardi owned a farm near Norristown, Pennsylvania and grew fruits and vegetables. The couple went around to their neighbors delivering produce to them. Gaspare and Josephine were the parents of nine children. Of the nine were Charlie, Frank, Tom, Joe, and Jim who helped out with the business. The five sons soon became known as the "Genuardi brothers" by the customers.

The Genuardi family opened its first supermarket in Norristown in 1954, which until its closure was the oldest surviving Genuardi's in operation. Relatives of the Genuardi family also maintain a nursery and florist in Norristown.

The five Genuardi brothers expanded their supermarkets throughout the western Philadelphia suburbs, spanning Bucks, Delaware, Chester, and Montgomery counties. The company has never had any stores within Philadelphia city limits. In 1975, it acquired some former Pantry Pride, originally known as Food Fair, and A&P stores, and more ex-A&P properties rejected by Super Fresh in 1985.

The chain's first surviving stores outside Norristown opened in the 1980s.

In the late 1980s, the five brothers decided to transfer ownership of the stores to a third generation of family, which consisted of Jim Jr., Joe Jr., Charles A., Larry, Tom Jr., Michael, Anthony, Skip, and David Genuardi. Charles A. was named President/CEO of Genuardi's Family Markets. Also during this time, it owned a discount grocery chain called Mad Grocer.

In the late 1990s, the company expanded into Delaware and New Jersey. The name of the supermarkets was generally pronounced as /dʒəˈnɑːrdis/ by the English speakers of the region, including in TV and radio commercials, regardless of any Italian pronunciation that the founding family's surname may originally have had in Italy; thus, /dʒənˈwɑːrdis/, despite being reasonable with respect to an Italian original, was not the usual sound.

21st century[edit]

In February 2001, the Genuardi family sold the chain to Safeway. In the summer of 2004, all Genuardi's stores in Delaware were converted to the Safeway banner when they were unionized. Safeway already had stores of its own in southern Delaware. There were issues and local outrage over the Safeway takeover due to claims of price increases, the changeover of many products to Safeway's own brands, and the use of a loyalty card, which was not needed under Genuardi's previous ownership. Except for the Safeway conversions, Genuardi's remained non-union, despite heavy unionization in Safeway's other chains.

In 2005, grocery delivery was added to select Genuardi's stores. This allowed customers to order groceries via the Genuardi's/Safeway websites and have it delivered by truck in a set time frame. Later on in the year, Genuardi's closed two underperforming stores in East Windsor, New Jersey and Bensalem, Pennsylvania, the latter of which was converted to a ShopRite.

During 2010, underperforming Genuardi's stores did not have their leases renewed and Safeway closed store locations in Newtown Square (Edgmont), Glen Mills, Chesterbrook, and Lansdale in Pennsylvania, and Voorhees in New Jersey.

In September 2011, Safeway was looking to sell all or part of Genuardi's.^[5] Later that month, a sale of several of Genuardi's locations to Giant-Carlisle appeared to be imminent.^[6]

On January 5, 2012, Giant announced its deal to acquire 15 Genuardi's Family Markets across the Philadelphia area in a $106 million (~$139 million in 2023) deal.^[7][8] For three weeks in July 2012, Giant opened 5 of the former Genuardi's stores each week.^[7]

Weis Markets announced on February 13, 2012, the purchase of three stores in Montgomery and Bucks counties.^[9] The three Weis stores opened on June 16, 2012.^[10]

Although it was initially to be acquired by Giant, it was announced on June 6, 2012, that the Newtown store would instead become a McCaffrey's Food Markets.^[11] The Newtown store became a McCaffrey's on July 15.^[12]

After failing to find a buyer for the location, the Cherry Hill store closed on August 4, 2012, and later became Whole Foods Market.^[13]

The Barnegat and Egg Harbor Township/Northfield stores closed on December 12, 2012. The Barnegat store was set to re-open when Acme Markets, the chain's long-time rival, announced in late 2015 it would be taking over the closed Barnegat location; this was made possible when Albertsons (Acme's parent firm) merged with Safeway earlier in the year, and Safeway continued to hold the location's lease long after it closed. The store reopened as an Acme on February 5, 2016 and the Egg Harbor Township/Northfield store became JR's Fresh Market in 2015 but that closed in 2018 and became Lidl in 2021.^[14][15]

The Marlton store closed on February 12, 2013.^{[16][17][7][18]}

The Audubon store, the last remaining store, closed on May 27, 2015; this location reopened as a Redner's in 2019.

References[edit]

Sources[edit]

• Genuardi Family Markets Employee Handbook, 1995.

External links[edit]

• Official website (Archive)