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Looking either at the right or the left hanging opposite each particular kind, size or assortment of any class of merchandise you will find a swinging price tag on which are some plain figures. Piggly Wiggly says to each and all, “Come to this wonderful store where you enter through a turnstile, where you are loaned a basket for your use while in the store, where you can see to the right side as you walk along the first aisle, hundreds of food products displayed, and on the left-hand side, hundreds of other kinds displayed.” Welcome to the first Piggly Wiggly – Memphis, Tennessee (1918) Here are some pictures of this first store two years into the business, along with some text from a Piggly Wiggly newspaper advertisement that same year. What did that mean? Well, up until that, there was far more interaction with shopkeepers than there is today.Īs they wrote in an ad touting the benefits of their new shop, “At any place in a Piggly Wiggly store that you see anything you want, you have a perfect right to take with your own hands the very thing that appeals to you and which you desire to purchase.” Not only was it the first PW shop, it was also the first self-service grocery store in the United States. Stores in South Carolina and Alabama have also recently closed, raising concerns about food deserts.This little Piggly Wiggly went to Memphis, Tennessee… and opened to customers in 1916. 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. Now, she and other tenants are unsure how they’ll get by. 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.