Stop & Shop… Great food. Low prices. Friendly service.

The Stop & Shop Supermarket Company is a chain of supermarkets located mostly in the northeastern United States.

History
Stop & Shop’s roots can be traced back to 1914, when it was founded by Solomon and Jeanie Rabinowitz in Somerville, Mass., and named the Economy Grocery Stores Company. Within its first four years, the company revolutionized grocery shopping by introducing the concept of self-service at a supermarket. The company was officially renamed Stop & Shop in 1947; by then the chain had grown to 86 supermarkets in the northeast.

The company continued to grow and expand. It opened stores in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island. By 1982, its stores went from being 30,000-square-foot supermarkets to 45,000- to 80,000-square-foot superstores.

Unlike traditional supermarkets, the Stop & Shop superstores featured bakeries, pharmacies, expanded deli departments, cafes, salad bars and, in some cases, banks, expanded liquore and beer sections, and even video rentals. Shoppers would eventually find Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts outlets inside certain Stop & Shop supermarkets. For two decades following the opening of the first superstore, all of the Stop & Shop stores were converted into superstores.

Stop & Shop continued to expand after the American branch of Dutch food giant Royal Ahold — Ahold USA — bought the company in 1995 and re-branded two of its chains under the Stop & Shop banner. In 2004 Ahold integrated the supermarkets with its subsidiary Giant Food LLC and created a combined company named Stop & Stop/Giant-Landover.

By 2010, Stop & Shop became the largest food retailer based in New England, operating more than 375 stores in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island. That same year, Stop & Shop’s parent company, Ahold US, was planning to relocate its corporate headquarters from Quincy, Mass., to Carlisle, Penn., to centralize its operations in one location. Visit www.stopandshop.com for more information.

Stats
Headquarters: Quincy, Mass.
No. of Stores: 375
No. of Employees: 61,000
Geography: Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island
Special Services: In-store pharmacy, florist shop, gas station (at select locations)

Brands
Nature’s Promise, Simply Enjoy, CareOne, Guaranteed Value

Important links
Corporate Homepage
Online shopping
Circular and specials
Jobs
Store Locations
Contact information