Sav-A-Center was a trade name owned by

The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, better known as A&P, was an American chain of grocery stores that operated from 1859 to 2015. From 1915 through 1975, A&P was the largest grocery retailer in the United States (and, until 1965, the lar ...

History

The Sav-A-Center name was first used for a chain of 20 supermarkets in the greater

New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

, area. The division operated throughout

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

, and had two stores in

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

. In addition, the Sav-A-Center division included three regular A&P stores, one of which was a small "corner grocery" in the

French Quarter The French Quarter, also known as the , is the oldest neighborhood in the city of New Orleans. After New Orleans (french: La Nouvelle-Orléans) was founded in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, the city developed around the ("Old Sq ...

of New Orleans that A&P had been operating since 1931. By August 2005, Sav-A-Center operated primarily in the Baton Rouge and New Orleans metropolitan areas, and along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Many stores sustained damage as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Twenty-one stores reopened within a few months of the storm; two others following remodeling to repair flood damage. Five stores were closed permanently due to severe damage to the stores and surrounding areas. In April 2007, the chain exited the Baton Rouge area. On May 30, 2007, A&P confirmed that it was planning to exit the

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

area, and was seeking buyers for its 20 remaining Sav-A-Center stores. A&P said the company cited its decision to focus on its remaining operations in the Northeast, where it operated the majority of its stores. It was announced in September 2007 that the remaining Sav-A-Center stores would be sold to the locally owned

Rouses Rouses Markets are a chain of grocery supermarkets in the U.S. states of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi with more than 6,500 employees. History The company had its start as the City Produce Company, founded in Thibodaux, Louisiana by J. ...

chain. Rouses took over 16 Sav-A-Center stores, including the Mississippi stores and the French Quarter A&P, sold one to competing chain Breaux Mart, and closed the others.

A&P Sav-A-Center

The Sav-A-Center name was also added to many of A&P's Northeastern and mid-South Atlantic stores in the mid-1980s, shortly after A&P purchased most of

Stop & Shop The Stop & Shop Supermarket Company, known as Stop & Shop, is a regional chain of supermarkets located in the northeastern United States. From its beginnings in 1892 as a small grocery store, it has grown to include 406 stores chain-wide. Sto ...

’s New York metro area stores following the chain’s exit from the market area. After the sale, A&P found itself sharing strip-mall space with many

Bradlees Bradlees Department Store, more commonly known as Bradlees, was a discount department store chain based in Braintree, Massachusetts, which operated primarily in the Northeastern United States. Bradlees sold various retail items in its stores, inc ...

stores, which at the time were owned by Stop & Shop, and in some cases the two chains shared a building in a manner not unlike today’s

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...

supercenters. When A&P took over the supermarkets, a common wall was built to separate the businesses. In many areas, including

Tidewater region Tidewater refers to the north Atlantic coastal plain region of the United States of America. Definition Culturally, the Tidewater region usually includes the low-lying plains of southeast Virginia, northeastern North Carolina, southern Mary ...

/ Hampton Roads, Virginia, in North Carolina, plus most of A&P's Northeastern area, traditional A&P stores were remodeled as Sav-A-Centers; the

classic A classic is an outstanding example of a particular style; something of lasting worth or with a timeless quality; of the first or highest quality, class, or rank – something that exemplifies its class. The word can be an adjective (a ''c ...

A&P sign's red, orange, and yellow colors became shades of

kelly green Shades of chartreuse are listed below. Historically, many of these colors have gone under the name of either yellow or green, as the specifics of their color composition was not known until later. Wrapping the spectrum into a color wheel In a ...

. In the Northeast, the former Stop & Shop stores were larger than most of the traditional A&P stores. The company tried to use the Sav-A-Center conversion as a part of its "We've Built a Proud New Feeling" campaign, which was created to shed the company's high-price, stodgy perception. The campaign featured images of larger, cleaner, modern-style stores, happy, upscale-looking shoppers, and friendly, cooperative staff. (It was during this time that A&P debuted its Futurestores.) The Sav-A-Center stores were renovated with oversized graphics of fresh-looking produce and baked goods; they also were outfitted with IBM-POS checkouts. However, A&P had trouble shedding its high-price perception; gradually, the low-volume Sav-A-Centers lost sales and shoppers to stores such as

Pathmark Pathmark is a supermarket brand owned by Allegiance Retail Services, a retailers’ cooperative based in Iselin, New Jersey, USA. Pathmark currently has one location in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York, which it has operated since 2019. From ...

(later a division of A&P) and NYC area-leader ShopRite (the Wakefern retailers' cooperative). Some of the stronger Sav-A-Centers survived, but many eventually closed, or were re-branded in the mid-to-late 1990s as ''A&P Food Market''. A&P's southeastern and Carolina divisions were sold in 1998; some of the smaller New York metro-area stores that survived were rebranded beginning in 2001 as Food Basics.

Kohl's Sav-A-Center

After A&P purchased the

Kohl's Food Stores Kohl’s Food Stores was a Milwaukee-area grocery store chain and subsidiary of The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company. Kohl’s Food Stores distribution center was located in Waukesha, while its management offices were located in Milwaukee, ...

chain, based in

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

, some of those stores were re-branded as Kohl's Sav-A-Center. These stores were later re-branded as Kohl's Food Market or Kohl's Food Emporium before that chain went under.

Family Mart Sav-A-Center

In the 1980s and 1990s A&P rebranded many locations of its

Southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...

The Family Mart chain as Family Mart Sav-A-Center.http://www.groceteria.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1987&view=next A&P/Family Mart

Dominion Save-A-Centre

Beginning in the late 1980s,

A&P Canada A&P Canada Company was a Canadian supermarket company that operated from 1927 until 2009, when its stores were rebranded under the Metro name by Metro Inc. History In 1927, A&P opened its first stores in Canada. By 1929, A&P was present in 20 ...

opened several stores in the

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

area under the ''Save-A-Centre'' name. Its logo was the same as the American Save-A-Center, with the exceptions of being red rather than green, and ''Centre'' being the Canadian spelling of ''center''. In the late 1990s, these stores were rebranded as Dominion Save-A-Centre (Dominion was another Canadian supermarket chain owned by A&P) and some remained in operation, eventually converted to Metro stores by 2009, following Metro's acquisition of A&P's Canadian properties, including Dominion.

Pathmark Sav-A-Center

A&P revived the Sav-A-Center name on newly remodeled

locations in New Dorp, New York, Irvington and

Edison, New Jersey Edison is a township located in Middlesex County,in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Situated in Central New Jersey within the core of the state's Raritan Valley region, Edison is a commercial hub, home to Menlo Park Mall and Little India. It ...

;

Upper Darby, Pennsylvania Upper Darby Township, often shortened to Upper Darby, is a home rule township in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. The township borders Philadelphia, the nation's sixth most populous city as of 2020 with 1.6 million residents. As of the 2020 ce ...

, and in three stores in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

. In addition, A&P's website rebranded Pathmark as ''Pathmark Sav-A-Center''
here
Before being branded Pathmark Sav-A-Center, many of the chain's locations were branded ''Pathmark Super Center''.

References

External links

Rouses Website
{{Supermarkets of the United States Defunct supermarkets of Canada Supermarkets of the United States The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company