Read more: 30 Southern exports worthy of a thank-you cardĪ historical marker describing the beginning of Piggly Wiggly in Memphis, Tennessee. With this new concept, customers were given shopping baskets and open shelves and no longer needed clerks to shop for them. In consequence, he revolutionized the entire grocery trade and developed a way for shoppers to serve themselves.ĭespite low confidence in the industry, Saunders’ first store opened in 1916 on Jefferson Street in Memphis, Tennessee, and was unlike any other grocery store of the time. (Think general store in Little House on the Prairie.) But Saunders was known as a charismatic man with an inventive mind and resolved to update what he considered a method that wasted time and expense. (Joe Songer)īack in the early 20th century, shoppers would hand over their grocery lists to clerks who then gathered goods from the store shelves. Yeah, Piggly Wiggly seems like a simple concept, but it's actually a modern marvel. Today, it has more than 600 locations in the U.S. ![]() ![]() Case in point: Piggly Wiggly, more commonly referred to as “The Pig.” In spite of such a comical (yet endearing) store name, this Southern supermarket staple, started in Memphis by Clarence Saunders, was actually the first self-service grocery store in America. Despite the shade that sometimes gets thrown the South's way, trailblazing "firsts" are actually quite common in its history.
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