Product Details & Size Guide

GhostCorp Apparel - resurrecting iconic corporate ghosts.

Give your desk a conversation-starting reminder of Alpha Beta’s place in supermarket history with this foldable mobile phone display stand. The company’s roots trace to Albert and Hugh Gerrard’s plan to arrange groceries alphabetically, an idea used at Triangle Grocerteria in 1915. Their first Alpha Beta store opened in Pomona in 1917, and later name changes carried the story across several regions. This is a practical gift idea for former shoppers, grocery-history enthusiasts, and collectors fascinated by the changing identities of neighborhood stores.

Alpha Beta began as a grocery-marketing concept developed by Albert and Hugh Gerrard: arranging groceries in alphabetical order. They used the idea at their flagship Triangle Grocerteria in 1915, then opened the first Alpha Beta store in Pomona, California, in 1917. The Southwestern supermarket chain also operated Alphy's coffee shops; after their sale, many became Denny's. American Stores bought the company in 1961. Skaggs Drug Centers acquired American Stores in 1979 and retained its name; combined food-and-drug locations in Alpha Beta territory became Skaggs Alpha Beta. In 1984, all 34 Arizona stores were sold to ABCO Foods and continued using Alpha Beta under a temporary license; Tucson locations changed to the ABCO name around 1989. In September 1991, 76 stores in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arkansas became Jewel-Osco. Albertsons bought some Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas stores months later. In 1994, Yucaipa Companies, then owner of the Southern California chain, bought Ralphs Grocery Company. By September 1995, Southern California locations had become Ralphs or Food 4 Less. Northern California and San Diego County stores went to Lucky Stores, later acquired by Albertsons. Many northern California locations were sold to Save Mart Supermarkets in 2006 and eventually returned to the Lucky name.