Kohl's Food Stores

Ghost Corp Apparel — resurrecting iconic corporate ghosts.

Kohl’s Food Stores was the Milwaukee-born supermarket chain built by Maxwell Kohl, who had operated neighborhood grocery stores since 1927. Its first supermarket opened in Milwaukee in 1946, eventually anchoring a southeastern Wisconsin grocery operation with management offices in Milwaukee.

By 1962, the food business had become the largest supermarket chain in the Milwaukee area. That same year, Kohl opened the first Kohl’s department store in Brookfield—an adjacent retail story, but not the same ghost. In 1972, British American Tobacco’s U.S. retail division acquired a controlling interest in Kohl’s Corporation, then operating 50 grocery stores alongside department, drug, and liquor stores.

The food-store division changed hands again in 1983, when A&P acquired it from Batus. The familiar grocery name survived under A&P, first as Kohl’s Food Store and later at some locations as Kohl’s Food Emporium. The carts kept rolling, though the corporate family tree had become impressively tangled.

In February 2003, A&P moved to sell the chain as part of a debt-reduction effort. Roundy’s subsidiary Copps acquired several Madison-area stores, while A&P announced the closure of its remaining Kohl’s Food Stores that June. The chain’s run ended in 2003, leaving Milwaukee-area grocery memories and a very different retail namesake still roaming the aisles.

Our Kohl's Food Stores collection celebrates the arched-roof supermarket era, Milwaukee grocery runs, and the glorious retail confusion of a name that once meant produce before it meant pants.