Eagle Food Centers
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| Grocer, subsidiary of Lucky Stores | |
| Industry | Retail |
| Founded | 1893 Davenport, Iowa |
| Defunct | 2003 |
| Headquarters | Milan, Illinois |
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Key people
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Tenenbom family (founders); Richard & Maynard Waxenberg; Howard Cohn;, Ben and Morris Geifman; Frank, Bernard & Ira Weindruch |
| Products | Bakery, dairy, deli, frozen foods, general grocery, meat, pharmacy, produce, seafood, snacks, liquor |
| Parent | Lucky |
Eagle Food Centers was a chain of supermarkets that operated in Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Illinois for a number of years. The company was based out of Milan, Illinois, which is near the Quad Cities of Illinois and Iowa. The company operated stores under many names, including BOGO'S, Eagle Country Market, Eagle Discount Centers, Eagle Discount Supermarkets, Eagle Food Centers, May's Drug and MEMCO. Eagle also operated stores in Houston known as Eagle Supermarkets until March 1985. The chain held a 6 percent market share and had 1,100 employees before leaving the area.
In 1893, Tenenbom family opened the forerunner of Eagle's chain in Davenport. In 1921, Geifman's and Eagle Kash and Karry opened small neighborhood markets in the Quad-Cities, which specialized in fruits and vegetables. These two operations grew during the 1930s as both family operations added new stores. Eagle's was owned by brothers-in-law, Frank Weindruch and Isadore Pesses. The Geifman brothers of Rock Island, Ben and Morris, owned the Illinois Geifman stores. Their uncle George and his sons, Morris and Sam owned the Iowa Geifman stores. By 1935, self-service had become an important part of the grocery business, with Eagle and other stores responding by allowing self-service at lower prices.
In 1952, Abe Tenenbom died, and his nephew, Richard Waxenberg took over Tenenboms, and the Illinois Geifman's merged their five stores with the eight stores of Davenport's Tenenbom-Waxenberg family. Together, they became known as United Supermarkets. In 1954, United merged with 10 stores of Eagle Kash and Karry, forming the largest area chain, called Eagle-United Supermarkets. In 1957, construction was completed of the New Milan warehouse with 155,000 square feet (14,400 m2) of space. The former Eagle warehouse on Fifth Avenue in Moline was sold to Fresh-Pak Candy. In 1961, Eagle was purchased by Consolidated Foods Corp. of Chicago, one of the nation's leading food processors and distributors. Consolidated operated 68 Piggly Wiggly stores at that time. The Eagle and Piggly Wiggly operations were then combined and operated from Eagle's corporate office and warehouse in Milan, Illinois. In 1965, Coin Bakery (of Rock Island) was purchased and became a part of Eagle, under the name Harvest Day Bakery.
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Wikipedia