South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Publix turns 90
A photo history of the 5th-largest supermarket chain in the country
One wonders what George Jenkins might have envisioned when he opened his first Publix grocery store on Sept. 6, 1930, in Winter Haven, Florida.
Could he have predicted that 90 years later there would be more than 1,200 Publix supermarkets in seven states with more than 220,000 employees? Or that his grocery store’s deli counter would come to be known for a sandwich lovingly referred to as the Pub Sub, which would be popular enough to inspire its own T-shirt?
And what must have it been like to shop in a Publix store nine decades ago?
Well, thanks to Publix, the public library in Lakeland — where Publix is headquartered — the Florida Archives and other photo resources, we can step into the store aisles of the past. The images they’ve compiled capture what Publix looked like back in its early years and through the 20th Century.
The first Publix store opened on Sept. 6, 1930, at 58 NW 4th Street in Winter Haven, Florida.
Business was booming and a decade later Jenkins embraced the new concept of the supermarket, expanding his grocery items to include other products and new innovations.
According to Publix, store founder George Jenkins “built his ‘food palace’ of marble, glass and stucco, and equipped it with innovations never seen before in a grocery store. Air conditioning. Fluorescent lighting. Electric-eye doors. Frozen food cases. Piped-in music. Eight-foot-wide aisles. Open dairy cases designed to Mr. George’s specifications. In-store donut and flower shops.
People traveled from miles to shop there, and Publix prospered.”
Sources: Lakeland Public Library Publix Supermarkets Photographs collection; the State Library and Archives of Florida, Publix.com