Big Bear Stores

Ghost Corp Apparel — resurrecting iconic corporate ghosts.

Big Bear Stores was a Columbus, Ohio grocery institution that spent more than 70 years feeding families across Ohio and West Virginia. Founded in Columbus in 1933, Big Bear grew from a single supermarket into one of the Midwest’s best-known regional grocery chains.

Big Bear was surprisingly innovative for a neighborhood supermarket chain. Its first store helped introduce the self-service supermarket concept to the Midwest, and the company became an early adopter of cashier-operated motorized checkout conveyor belts and IBM mainframe computers. Later, the company experimented with the Big Bear Plus format, combining a full supermarket with general merchandise under one very large roof.

In 1989, Big Bear was acquired by Penn Traffic, ending its run as an independent Columbus-based company. The chain continued operating throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, but increased competition and financial problems at its parent company eventually caught up with it. When Penn Traffic filed for bankruptcy again in 2003, the remaining Big Bear and Big Bear Plus stores were closed or sold, and the final locations disappeared in early 2004.

Seventy-one years of groceries, checkout lines, and Big Bear hugs — eventually put into permanent hibernation.

Our Big Bear Stores collection celebrates the classic bear logo, neighborhood supermarkets, Big Bear Plus stores, and the memory of a grocery chain that was once an unmistakable part of everyday life in Ohio and West Virginia.