Jungle Jim's International Market, formerly Jungle Jim's Farmer's Market, is a large specialty

supermarket A supermarket is a self-service Retail#Types of outlets, shop offering a wide variety of food, Drink, beverages and Household goods, household products, organized into sections. Strictly speaking, a supermarket is larger and has a wider selecti ...

in Fairfield, Ohio, with a satellite location in Union Township, Clermont County, both near

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

. The main location is roughly 200,000 square feet (4.6 acres or 18,580 square meters), and has been described as a

theme park An amusement park is a park that features various attractions, such as rides and games, and events for entertainment purposes. A theme park is a type of amusement park that bases its structures and attractions around a central theme, often fea ...

of food. Jungle Jim's offers one of the largest wine selections in the

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, live seafood tanks, and an in-store cooking school. Each week, the store is visited by about 82,000 shoppers, whom founder "Jungle" Jim Bonaminio calls "

foodie A foodie is a person who has an ardent or refined interest in food, and who eats food not only out of hunger but also as a hobby. The related terms "gastronome" and "gourmet" define roughly the same thing, i.e. a person who enjoys food for pleasur ...

s". Many of the specialty foods in international departments are difficult to find elsewhere in the

Greater Cincinnati The Cincinnati metropolitan area (also known as the Cincinnati Tri-State area or Greater Cincinnati) is a metropolitan area with its core in Ohio and Kentucky. Its largest city is Cincinnati and includes surrounding counties in the U.S. states ...

area, and customers have been known to drive from other cities for the store's wide variety of food. Jungle Jim’s is also known for its use of

animatronics An animatronic is a puppet controlled electronically to move in a fluent way. Animatronics are the modern adaptation of the automaton and are often used for the portrayal of characters in films, video games and in theme park attractions. Anim ...

as well as other displays.

History

In 1971, "Jungle" Jim Bonaminio set up a semi-permanent produce stand in a parking lot in Hamilton, Ohio. Over the next three years, Bonaminio moved the stand to several vacant lots throughout the area until he bought a plot of land. Due to the industrial zoning of the land, the city of Fairfield was reluctant to issue a permit for a commercial fruit and vegetable stand. After discussing an exception made for nearby fast food chain Arthur Treacher's, the city commission approved the permit. The first store opened in 1975 with 4,200 square feet of space. Bonaminio continued to expand the store, adding products at customer request and enlarging and re-arranging the store. In 1988, after visiting specialty markets in

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, he decided to make the store an international market as well as introduce the jungle theme. Today, Jungle Jim’s is known for its wide variety of international foods such as various cheeses, exotic meats, breads and wines.

Expansion

Around 2004, Jungle Jim's added a

strip mall A strip mall, strip center, strip plaza or simply plaza is a type of shopping mall, shopping center common in North America and Australia where the stores are arranged in a row, with a footpath in front. Strip malls are typically developed as a ...

on one side, including

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and CiCi's Pizza. In 1998, the store purchased the former "Lion Country Safari" monorail trains from Kings Island. A large Jungle-themed station featuring a giant snake façade was constructed behind the store and a second station was constructed at the Oscar Event Center to allow for guests to experience the monorail. Original plans called for the monorail to complete a circuit around the property, however, this has never been completed and unused supports still remain around the property. In 2019, the store opened "The Oscar Station", a bourbon bar experience housed within the monorail station. In January 2020, an expansion of the front end of the store was announced, adding 17,000 square feet to the store and space for tenants, including Graeter's ice cream. On April 1, 2005, Bonaminio signed a letter of intent to open a second, smaller location closer to

, but by April 2007, the project was canceled due to a lack of progress at the site. On September 25, 2012, Jungle Jim's opened a second location at the former

bigg's Remke Markets is a chain of American supermarkets in the Cincinnati metropolitan area. History Remke Markets was founded in 1897 as a meat market in Covington, Kentucky, by William Remke, the supermarket has grown and now has 6 locations. The ...

Place Mall in Eastgate.

The Oscar Event Center

The Oscar Event Center is a 34,100 sq. ft event space attached to Jungle Jim's International Market. Named after "Jungle" Jim's middle name, the event space opened in 2007. There are several venues within the event center: The Main Hall, The Lounge, The Outdoor Terrace, The Pub. The event space hosts several yearly events, including the International Craft Beer Festival, Weekend of Fire, International Wine Festival, Barrel-Aged Beer Bash, New Year New You, Big Cheese Festival, and Whiskey Night. Jungle Jim's has been featured on the

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show '' Unwrapped'', the

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show '' Modern Marvels'', and

ABC News ABC News most commonly refers to: * ABC News (Australia), a national news service of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation * ABC News (United States), a news-gathering and broadcasting division of the American Broadcasting Company ABC News may a ...

' ''

Good Morning America ''Good Morning America'', often abbreviated as ''GMA'', is an American breakfast television, morning television program that is broadcast on American Broadcasting Company, ABC. It debuted on November 3, 1975, and first expanded to weekends wit ...

''.

References

External links

Jungle Jim's International MarketThe Oscar Event CenterPhotos of Jungle Jim's
at

Flickr Flickr ( ) is an image hosting service, image and Online video platform, video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was previously a co ...

* – founder Jim Bonaminio discusses the store's history fo
WCET-TV

kicentral.com/history/monorail
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