first began in
San Mateo County, California when
Charles Crouch expanded his "lucky stores" to the
East Bay in
1935 . Stores were first grouped in
Oakland and surrounding areas. Lucky had a big influence in transitioning from small store to supermarket.
Its first flagship store opened in
1947 in
San Leandro, CA . It featured a coffee shop and other conveniences. It was the last Lucky Store to close after the take-over by
Albertson's .
Through the years Lucky acquired
Cardinal Stores ,
Jim Dandy and
Food Basket among others.
Throughout the
1960s and
1970s , Lucky Stores operated the
Gemco and
Memco (on the
East Coast ) department stores. These stores were closed in
1986 .
By
1988 , Lucky became a part of
American Stores Company , along with
Jewel-Osco ,
Acme ,
Alpha Beta ,
Food Basket , and
Sav-On Drugs . The Alpha Beta stores in
Northern California became Lucky Stores. A number of
Southern California branches were either sold or merged with
Ralphs . As a result of the American Stores takeover, Gemco and Memco were sold to
Dayton Hudson and became part of
Target Stores . Some Lucky Stores changed their name to Lucky-Savon as part of the merger.
In
1998 , American Stores was bought out by
Albertsons , which became the second largest grocery retailer in the
United States . In the year that followed, all Lucky Stores were re-named
Albertsons .
In
2006 ,
Berkeley, CA -based
Grocery Outlet closed its
Rocklin, CA location, only to re-open the store with the Lucky name and the classic Lucky logo. On
April 1 ,
2005 , the Sacramento Bee, interviewing Grocery Outlet President and COO
Bob Tiernan , reported that the "company believes the Lucky brand has value. And the new store format, with an 'every day low pricing' strategy, 'reminds us of Lucky,'". Grocery Outlet lawyer Peter Craigie noted that Albertson's has indicated its belief that it continues to own the Lucky brand. However, Grocery Outlet believes that Albertson's failure to utilize the brand means the company has effectively surrendered the trademark. Grocery Outlet has pre-emptively filed a lawsuit against Albertsons seeking a declaration from Albertsons that the company has surrendered the brand.
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On the next day,
April 2 , Albertson filed a request for a temporary restraining order for Grocery Outlet's usage of the Lucky mark.
At the same time, on Albertson's homepage, the Lucky trademark re-appeared, seemingly as evidence for the mark's use. [https://www.albertsons.com/defaultSSL.asp Albertsons.com assessed on April 6, 2006.
The request was denied by the
District Court on
April 5 . Albertsons had argued that it did not intend to abandon the Lucky brand and that Lucky shopping carts still remained at some of its stores.
District Judge Jeffrey White ruled that Albertsons failed to demonstrate that the use of the Lucky brand demonstrated unfair competition and that the burden to prove otherwise was wholly the responsibility of Albertsons.
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