Rainbow Foods was a

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. This kind of store is larger and has a wider selection than earli ...

chain in

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

. Founded in 1983, it operated more than 40 stores across the state at its peak and was the second-largest grocery store chain in the Twin Cities, behind

Cub Foods Cub is an American supermarket chain. It operates stores in Minnesota and Illinois. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of SuperValu Inc., based in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. History Beginnings Cub Foods was founded by Minnesota-based Hooley ...

. However, the arrival of other grocery stores in the market, such as

Aldi Aldi (stylised as ALDI) is the common company brand name of two German multinational family-owned discount supermarket chains operating over 10,000 stores in 20 countries. The chain was founded by brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht in 1946, when t ...

and

Hy-Vee Hy-Vee, Inc. () is an employee-owned chain of supermarkets in the Midwestern and Southern United States, with more than 280 locations in Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and soon Indiana, Kentucky, ...

in the 2000s and 2010s caused the grocery store chain to shrink to 27 locations by May 2014. Soon after, nine more closed and eighteen were sold by then-owner Roundy's; only six of these kept the Rainbow name.

History

Rainbow Foods was founded by

Sid Applebaum Sidney "Sid" Applebaum (February 28, 1924 – August 6, 2016) was an American businessman, the cofounder of Rainbow Foods. Biography Sidney Applebaum was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on February 28, 1924, to Oscar and Bertha Applebaum. He w ...

and D. B. Reinhart of Gateway Foods in 1983 and grew to become the second-largest grocery chain in the

Minneapolis–Saint Paul Minneapolis–Saint Paul is a metropolitan area in the Upper Midwestern United States centered around the confluence of the Mississippi, Minnesota and St. Croix rivers in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It is commonly known as the Twin Cities ...

area. The chain was sold to Texas-based wholesaler

Fleming Companies Fleming Companies was founded as Lux Mercantile in Topeka, Kansas, in 1915 by O. A. Fleming, Gene Wilson and Samuel Lux. In 1921 the company's name was changed to Fleming-Wilson, and in 1941, the company name was changed to The Fleming Company, ...

in 1994. During the 1990s, Rainbow built several stores in the

suburbs. After the sale to

Roundys Roundy's Supermarkets (also known as Roundy's) is an American supermarket operator. It owns and operates stores under the names of Pick 'n Save, Metro Market, and Mariano's Fresh Market. The chain is a subsidiary of Kroger. Roundy's operates 14 ...

in 2003, Rainbow began opening

Leeann Chin Leeann Chin is a Bloomington, Minnesota-based Asian quick service restaurant chain, with over 50 locations throughout the Midwest, mostly in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area. The chain was founded by its namesake, Leeann Chin, and funded by Carl ...

restaurants in its stores, starting with the Maple Grove and Bloomington stores in July 2004; over the next couple of years, Leeann Chin opened 10 restaurants inside Rainbow Foods stores; by 2007, however, they were down to just two locations, which eventually closed.

Decline

The decline of Rainbow Foods arguably started in 2000, when Fleming put Rainbow and several other chains up for sale. At the time, possible buyers of Rainbow Foods included grocery giants

Safeway Safeway is an American supermarket chain founded by Marion Barton Skaggs in April 1915 in American Falls, Idaho. The chain provides grocery items, food and general merchandise and features a variety of specialty departments, such as bakery, d ...

and

Albertsons Albertsons Companies, Inc. is an American grocery company founded and headquartered in Boise, Idaho. With 2,253 stores as of the third quarter of fiscal year 2020 and 270,000 employees as of fiscal year 2019, the company is the second-large ...

. Albertsons was very close to buying Rainbow Foods, but backed out of the deal. When Fleming sold Rainbow Foods in 2003, Albertsons was a Rainbow suitor, but backed out again. In 2003,

decided to sell 31 of the chains leases to

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee is ...

based

for 82.5 million dollars. Fleming decided to close the remaining 12 locations it had owned and pull out of the chain all together. In a surprise move on May 7, 2014,

announced that it had sold 18 of its Rainbow Foods stores to a consortium of area competitors and businesses for 65 million dollars. These competitors were

Lunds and Byerlys Lund Food Holdings, Inc is an American supermarket operator. Headquartered in Edina, it owns the upscale supermarket chain Lunds & Byerlys. The company opened its first supermarkets in the Uptown area of Minneapolis. In 2015, it changed its name ...

, SuperValu owner of

, the number one grocery store in Minnesota,

Jerry's Enterprises Jerry's Enterprises, Inc. is an operator of County Market, Cub Foods, Jerry's Foods and Save-a-Lot grocery stores headquartered in Edina, Minnesota. Jerry's Foods is the largest Cub Foods franchise in the United States and runs 20 retail supermar ...

, Haug Enterprises, and Radermacher Enterprises. The company could not find a bidder for nine of the remaining stores it owned and they all closed on July 22, 2014.
The stores that were purchased by the consortium were converted into Cub and

, while six remained Rainbow locations owned by the various members of the consortium. In September 2014, four months after buying the Rainbow Foods location in West St. Paul, supermarket owner Jerry's Enterprises said it now planned to close the store in November. In a letter sent to the city, Jerry's said the company had "developed plans based on business considerations" to close its Rainbow store at 1660 S. Robert St. The Rainbow on Minneapolis' Lake Street was also slated to close, Jerry's said. The stores joined nine other Rainbow supermarkets that were shut down in July, 2014, after Rainbow's owner Roundys left the Twin Cities market. After the closures the brand only had four remaining stores. The two Rainbow Foods stores on Lake Street and on Robert Street were said to close by November 9, 2014. After the closures there were only four Rainbow stores left. Another Rainbow store, in Plymouth, was converted into a Cub in July 2016, which closed two years later and is now a

store. After this conversion, three Rainbow foods remained. On September 21, 2017, the Rainbow Foods at the Midway Shopping Center in St. Paul closed. It closed due to a

soccer stadium Soccer-specific stadium is a term used mainly in the United States and Canada to refer to a sports stadium either purpose-built or fundamentally redesigned for soccer and whose primary function is to host soccer matches, as opposed to a multi-pu ...

being built on the property, requiring the existing store and part of the mall to be demolished. The Richfield HUB location off 66th street closed in March 2018, leaving one remaining Rainbow location in Maplewood. On September 14, 2018, it was announced that the Rainbow Foods in Maplewood, would close on Monday, September 17, officially marking the end of Rainbow Foods after 35 years; its building was converted into a Hy-Vee, which opened in June 2021. At the time of its closing, the Maplewood Rainbow was owned and operated by SuperValu, which also owned the Cub across the street.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.rainbowfoods.com/ Defunct companies based in Minnesota Defunct supermarkets of the United States Supermarkets of the United States