Big Bear Stores
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| Supermarket | |
| Industry | Retail |
| Fate | Closed |
| Founded | 1933 |
| Defunct | 2004 |
| Headquarters | Columbus, Ohio |
| Products | Bakery, dairy, deli, frozen foods, general grocery, meat, pharmacy, produce, seafood, snacks, liquor |
Big Bear Stores was a regional supermarket chain operating in Ohio and West Virginia. The company was founded in Columbus, Ohio, and was headquartered there until its acquisition by Syracuse, New York-based Penn Traffic in 1989. For nearly 75 years, the chain was a Central Ohio institution.
Big Bear Stores was founded in November 1933 by Wayne E. Brown. The first Big Bear Store opened on February 15, 1934 on West Lane Avenue in Columbus, Ohio, in what was once a dance hall, a roller skating rink and finally a tan bark ring for horse shows. This opening marked the beginning of self-service supermarketing in the Midwest. This first store was adjacent to the campus of The Ohio State University (now the site of the Riverwatch Tower apartments); within a year, a second store opened in Columbus. By the end of the second year, two more stores had opened, followed by stores in Lancaster, Marion, Newark and Toledo, Ohio.
It was the first self-serve supermarket in the Midwest, and was the first supermarket in the country to use cashier-operated motorized conveyor belts, and claimed several innovative services, including its own trolley line. Big Bear introduced shopping carts to their stores in 1937. Big Bear operated a farm north of Columbus (later the site of store #272), as well as the Big Bear Bakery, located near the OSU campus. In 1948, Brown, along with other supermarket operators, founded Topco Associates, and Big Bear distributed their products (i.e. Food Club, Valu Time) as their "house brand", as well as their own private brand "Betty Brown", named after the founder's wife. Like many other stores, Big Bear had a trading stamp program. For many years their orange and blue "Buckeye" stamps were a familiar sight for shoppers.
From its inception until its closing, Big Bear Stores, Inc., resisted the unionization of its employees, despite the fact that most of its competitors' workers were members of various unions. In exchange for a marginally lower per-hour salary rate, according to Big Bear executives in the 1960s, the company's employees at all levels had routine, confidential access to corporate representatives who would investigate any complaint on the part of any employee about working conditions at any Big Bear store.
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