Waldbaum's
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| Industry | |
|---|---|
| Fate | Bankruptcy |
| Founded | 1904 in Brooklyn, New York |
| Founder |
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| Defunct | 2015 |
| Headquarters | 2 Paragon Drive, Montvale, New Jersey, U.S. |
|
Area served
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| Parent | The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company |
| Website | http://www.waldbaums.com [1] |
Waldbaum's was a supermarket chain with stores in the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx; and in Nassau, Suffolk counties and Upstate New York. The chain also previously operated stores in New Jersey and Connecticut.
Founded in 1904, Waldbaum's was one of seven "banner store chains" owned and operated by The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P), which acquired the chain from its founding family in 1986.
Waldbaum's operated full-service traditional supermarkets with varying footprints and store models and its popular marquee in certain aisles along with good food and reliable service. At its peak in the 1980s, it was the 12th largest supermarket chain in the United States and had 140 stores throughout the New York metropolitan area. All Waldbaum's stores featured fresh meats and produce. Sixty-two stores had bakeries and 36 offered pharmacy service. As with other A&P-branded stores, Waldbaum's offered in-house products under the America's Choice, America's Choice Kids, America's Choice Gold, Two-Forks Bakery, Green Way, Via Roma, Food Basics, Home Basics, Great Atlantic Seafood Market, Mid-Atlantic Country Farms, Woodson & James, Hartford Reserve, Food Emporium Trading Co., Preferred Pet and Live Better brands.
In 1904 two Austrian brothers, Sam and Wolf Waldbaum, opened a store in Brooklyn. Their nephew, Israel "Izzy" Waldbaum, came to America and joined the business. The three men ran the store, with Izzy taking over the grocery when his uncles retired. Izzy married Julia Leffel; they had three children. When Izzy died in 1948, his son Ira took over the then existing six stores in Brooklyn.
The company made history in 1938 when identical twin African-American brothers, Ernst and George Brown, who started working at one of the only two existing stores at the time as stockboys were promoted to checkout boys. "It was unheard of then for a colored checker to be in a white neighborhood," Ernest Brown said three decades later in an interview. Both Browns later became store managers and, eventually, Waldbaum vice-presidents.
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