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Dominick's
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Dominick's |
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Type | Grocer, Subsidiary of Safeway Inc. |
Industry | Retail (Grocery) |
Founded | 1918 (Chicago, Illinois) |
Headquarters | Oak Brook, Illinois |
Number of locations | 72 |
Products | Bakery, dairy, deli, frozen foods, general grocery, meat,pharmacy, produce, seafood, snacks, liquor |
Website | dominicks.com |
Dominick's Finer Foods, Inc. is a grocery store chain and subsidiary of Safeway Inc. with locations mainly in the Chicago area, Illinois, USA. Dominick's distribution center is located in Northlake,[1] while its management offices are located in Oak Brook.[2][3]
Contents[hide] * 1 History * 1.1 Founding * 1.2Expansion * 1.3 Store design during Dominick's heyday * 1.4 1990s: Takeovers * 2 Omni Superstore * 3 Brands * 3.1 Lifestyle branding * 3.2 Banking * 4 Sales of Expired Food Controversy * 5 Store Closings * 6 References * 7 External links |
[edit] History
[edit] Founding
Dominick DiMatteo, born in Sicily, founded the chain in 1918. The second Dominick's opened in1934. In 1950, the DiMatteos opened their first supermarket, a 14,000-square-foot (1,300 m2) store.[4]
[edit] Expansion
By 1968 the chain had reached 19 stores. The family elected to sell their store to the Cleveland company, Fisher Foods. The DiMatteos continued to operate the chain under the financial backing of Fisher Foods. By the 1980s the family became unhappy with the agreement and boughtback the chain for $100 million.[4] The DiMatteos continued to expand and acquired Kohl's (Chicago area only) and Eagle stores.
[edit] Store design during Dominick's heyday
During the 1980s and early 1990s, Dominick's experimented with new large "food and drug" combo stores. Dominick's was one of the first to experiment with exposed ceiling sales areas, exposed structural elements such as pipingand HVAC ducts, large scale state of the art telephone systems and POS systems, video departments, one hour photo, bulk foods, and many other "new" 1980s concepts.[5]
During the 1990s, Dominick's took the "food and drug" combo to the next level with the introduction of the Dominick's Fresh Store, under the direction of then CEO Bob Mariano. The Dominick's "Fresh Store" introduced prepared foods,in store restaurants/cafes, Starbucks cafes, soft lighting, upscale subtle graphics, uniform products signage, and a general European Market feel to the Dominick's stores. During the late 1990s, the Fresh Stores were the main expansion model for Dominick's and was rolled out to all new stores including former Omni Superstores, up until the purchase by Safeway.
Safeway bought Dominick's in 1998and put an abrupt halt to the Bob Mariano styled Fresh Stores and instead rolled out their own prototype with the Fresh Store logo on the outside of the store.[6] Even though Safeway still put "The Fresh Store" cursive logo on the outside of the stores, the Fresh Store concepts such as cafes, fresh prepared foods and European store layout format were phased out in favor of Safeway's own store layoutand house brands such as Safeway Select. This caused many customers to stop shopping at Dominick's. Only lately, has Safeway regained market share with Dominick's by their introduction of the new "Lifestyle Format" which greatly reflects many of the concepts of the former Fresh Stores Bob Mariano created in the 1990s.[6]
[edit] 1990s: Takeovers
In 1993, Dominick DiMatteo, Jr. died from lungcancer. According to the local press, his daughters and son did not have the same passion for the supermarket business. There was corporate infighting that also contributed to the family selling the chain. It took three years before the company was sold to a Los-Angeles-based grocery investment firm headed by Yucaipa Co.[7] Starting in 1996, Dominick's "Fresh Stores" were developed by then...