![]() Someone once asked him why he had chosen such an unusual name for his organization, and Saunders' reply was, "So people will ask that very question." He wanted and found a name that would be talked about and remembered. One story is that he saw from a train window several little pigs struggling to get under a fence, and the rhyming name occurred to him then. Saunders' reason for choosing the intriguing name Piggly Wiggly ® remains a mystery he was curiously reluctant to explain its origin. Piggly Wiggly Corporation continued to prosper as franchiser for the hundreds of independently owned grocery stores allowed to operate under the Piggly Wiggly name and during the next several decades, functioned successfully under various owners. The stock was successfully traded on the New York Stock Exchange for some time, but through a series of stock transactions in the early 1920s, Saunders lost control of Piggly Wiggly and had no further association with the company. The original Piggly Wiggly Corporation became owner of all Piggly Wiggly properties: the name, the patents, etc., and Saunders began issuing stock in the Corporation. Piggly Wiggly Corporation, established by Saunders when he opened the first store in Memphis, secured the self-service format and issued franchises to hundreds of grocery retailers for the operation of Piggly Wiggly stores. There were shopping baskets, open shelves and no clerks to shop for the customer – all unheard of! Operating under the unusual name Piggly Wiggly, it was unlike any other grocery store of that time. Saunders, a flamboyant and innovative man, noticed that this method resulted in wasted time and expense, so he came up with an unheard-of solution that would revolutionize the entire grocery industry: he developed a way for shoppers to serve themselves.ĭespite predictions that this novel idea would fail, Saunders’ first store opened Septemat 79 Jefferson Street in Memphis. In grocery stores of that time, shoppers presented their orders to clerks who gathered the goods from the store shelves. Stores in South Carolina and Alabama have also recently closed, raising concerns about food deserts.Piggly Wiggly®, America's first true self-service grocery store, was founded in Memphis, Tenn. But, like other supermarkets, the franchise has taken a hit during the pandemic from labor shortages. Piggly Wiggly is one of the oldest grocery store chains in the United States. “The Piggly Wiggly design is the basic design of every convenience store,” said Freeman. You should just put the products out in reach of the customers,'” he said.Īnother innovation was putting price tags on items for sale in the store. “Saunders thought, ‘Well you don’t need all these clerks to run a grocery store. Saunders changed the way stores did business, Freeman said. “When you went to a store, you called out your order to a clerk, and a clerk - listening to you - gathered what you wanted and then you paid,” said Mike Freeman, who has written about the rise and fall of Piggly Wiggly founder Clarence Saunders. In those days, people didn’t used to pick up their own items in a store. The first Piggly Wiggly opened in 1916 in Memphis. One developer has studied putting apartments and retail space there. Sutton said she sees Piggly Wiggly as the latest victim of the city’s changing landscape. “Probably have to catch a bus to go down to Kroger or Walmart, or pay somebody to take you,” she said. We love being Down Home and Down the Street We bring the fun back into shopping and we make sure you feel at home every time you visit. Now, she and other tenants are unsure how they’ll get by. Piggly Wiggly Montgomery offers you a sanitized, well stocked, organized, helpful and friendly shopping experience for you, your friends, and your family. ![]() She went to the Piggly Wiggly about three times a day on her motorized wheelchair, she said. Sutton lives two blocks away from the store that closed at a public housing building for the elderly and people with disabilities. The store closing is especially tough for Gwendolyn Sutton, who has a hard time walking. ![]() The store filled a critical need for some residents who don’t have easy access to groceries. Although the chain has two more locations in Nashville and hundreds across the country, community members said the closure feels personal. This Piggly Wiggly closed its doors for good in April. “Everybody down here is on a first-name basis,” Blair said. In the last week that the Piggly Wiggly near Nashville’s downtown was open, Ken Blair, a regular, said the store reminded him of the small mom-and-pop shops he used to go to.
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