![]() ![]() Among others, midtowners could count on grocers in their neighborhood that included Leadway Food Stores and WeOna grocers, as well as smaller, neighborhood Piggly Wiggly stores. In Midtown Memphis, quite a few family-owned or small-chain “cooperative” stores dotted the map for generations. But now these little gems are rare today’s economics just don’t make them sustainable. And so merchants opened stores in their own neighborhoods, and that’s where they drew their customers.”Ī few neighborhood stores still exist here in the Mid-South, including High Point Grocery in High Point Terrace. There was a very practical reason for that: In the first half of the 1900s, we employed a very novel means of transportation when we decided to go shopping: We walked. Memphis Magazine’s Ask Vance recalls that “You have to realize that years ago, before national chains took over the grocery industry here, it was commonplace to have small, family-owned and operated groceries, markets, and other stores scattered along the residential streets of this city. However, throughout the 1920s and through the ’60s, little and lesser-known neighborhood grocery stores could be found everywhere before the big chains took over the landscape. When we think of the gold standard for the grocery store in the Mid-South, we of course think first of the chain of Piggly-Wiggly stores founded in 1916 by Clarence Saunders. Mythic because, in most cities, they exist only in our minds.” Having built and lost two fortunes, he will be remembered as the man who brought the retail store into the twentieth century.“The corner store has a mythic place in our view of American cities. On October 15, 1953, Clarence Saunders died. Unfortunately, Keedoozle never operated profitably. Saunders visualized a system that would dispense groceries quickly, with fewer errors, and simultaneously track inventory. The merchandise tumbled to conveyor belts and was carried to the shoppers at the cashier’s desk. The key activated circuits that released merchandise from the storage room chutes. ![]() The customer slipped a key into a coin slot next to a window display. It operated on the principles of the vending machine. A successful endeavor until the Great Depression, Saunders once again lost his business in the 1930s.įor the rest of his life, Saunders experimented with an automated grocery store, which he named Keedoozle. Immediately, he opened a competing grocery, called the Clarence Saunders Sole Owner of My Name Stores, or the Sole Owner Stores. He resigned from Piggly Wiggly and filed for bankruptcy. An attempt to corner the Piggly Wiggly stock failed, costing Saunders millions of dollars. Piggly Wiggly stock was traded on the New York Exchange. By 1923 the Piggly Wiggly chain included 1,268 stores selling $100 million in groceries and was the third largest retail grocery business in the nation. Within a year he was selling Piggly Wiggly franchises across the nation. Shoppers liked the store where prices were cheaper than competing markets. On September 11, 1916, Saunders opened his Piggly Wiggly store for business. Displeased by the lack of efficiency, he developed the idea of self-service. A bold and observant salesman, Saunders paid close attention to the business methods of his retail clients. While still in his twenties, Saunders left Clarksville for a sales position in a Memphis grocery company. Young Saunders found his calling in a Clarksville wholesale grocery house. Saunders was born in 1881 to an impoverished Virginia family, who moved to Palmyra, Montgomery County, Tennessee. While Saunders did not open the first self-service store, he is credited with selling this idea to a public still accustomed to being waited upon in stores. Instead shoppers selected from items placed on shelves within easy reach. ![]() In his innovative Piggly Wiggly self-service stores no clerks fetched groceries for customers. Clarence Saunders changed the way people buy their groceries. ![]()
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