Minyard Food Stores
 |
|
| Private | |
| Industry | Retail |
| Founded | 1932 |
| Defunct | 2017 |
| Headquarters | Carrollton, Texas, United States |
|
Key people
|
Frances Nelson, President |
| Products | Grocery |
| Revenue |
 $665 million USD 2009 |
|
Number of employees
|
~1,500 |
Frances Nelson, President
Bill Davidson General Manager
RLS Supermarkets LLC, doing business as Minyard Food Stores, was a privately owned supermarket chain in Texas.
The history of Minyard Food Stores dates back to the 1930s. A.W. "Eck" Minyard, a postal employee, purchased a store at 6011 Lindsley Avenue in East Dallas for $1,200. His primary motivation for the purchase was to provide jobs for his two younger brothers, H.C. "Henry" and M.T. "Buddy" Minyard, who had just completed high school. At that time, the country was in the depths of the Great Depression and jobs were scarce. On February 12, 1932, the first Minyard Food Store opened around the corner from the Minyard family home. The clapboard store was 540 square feet (50 m2) in size. A.W. Minyard initially continued his job as a postal worker while running the store on Sundays. He would later quit the postal job to focus fully on the grocery business. His sister Fay and another brother, H.J. "Hap" Minyard had joined the others by the late 1930s. The store was successful enough to spawn the opening of another store and a convenience store by the close of the decade. When the United States entered World War II, the younger Minyard brothers joined the military. A.W. and Fay Minyard closed all of the stores with the exception of the original East Dallas location. After the war, a total of three new stores opened during the 1940s.
The 1950s were a decade of growth for Minyard stores. Six new stores were opened, including the first outside of Dallas County in McKinney in 1957. In 1959, the business opened its largest store to date in Lancaster. At 25,000 square feet (2,300 m2), the Lancaster Minyard featured new technology such as mercury vapor lighting, a 200-car parking lot, automatic air-opened doors, background music, and air-conditioning. By 1960, the 11 Minyard Food Stores generated sales of $15 million. Additional sites were purchased for future expansion and in 1961, a 70,000-square-foot (6,500 m2) complex on Cedar Springs Street in Dallas became the site of Minyard's central office and distribution operations. By the end of the 1960s, the company had a total of 16 stores.
An additional 21 stores opened during the 1970s. By 1978, nine shopping centers were also owned by Minyard Properties, Inc. In 1979, a store opened in Mesquite that introduced bar codes and scanning to the chain. Plans for a new corporate headquarters were spearheaded by Bob and H.C. "Henry" Minyard. Henry, however, suffered a fatal heart attack on December 25, 1979 and didn't live to see the ground broken on the new complex. Bob Minyard was named president of the company. In August 1981, the corporate headquarters and distribution center moved to a 394,954-square-foot (36,692.4 m2) facility in Coppell, between the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth. By its 50th anniversary in 1982, the company operated 53 stores. That same year, a new concept store, the Sack 'n Save Warehouse Food Store, was introduced. The store, located in Haltom City, offered products in bulk at reduced prices. This new concept was considered necessary to remain competitive in the grocery industry, which faced slow growth during the mid-1980s. In 1987, Minyard purchased 24 stores from Safeway Stores, Inc., which exited the Dallas-Fort Worth market. This boosted the company's presences in the area. A total of 12 stores were bought in Dallas County, nine in neighboring Tarrant County, and three in other counties. Minyard was able to reopen all 24 stores within a record five days. By the end of 1987, the company owned and operated 62 Minyard Food Stores and 10 Sack 'n Save stores. Less than a year after the major acquisition, Chairman and CEO M.T. "Buddy" Minyard died of a heart attack. Leadership of the company passed to his two daughters, Lisbeth "Liz" Minyard and Gretchen Minyard Williams and CEO J. L. "Sonny" Williams
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Wikipedia