Sunday, September 02, 2007

Grocerying in Milledgeville, Georgia

Kroger (Former Bi-Lo)


Piggly Wiggly - South Milledgeville

Milledgeville, Georgia (population 20,000) is home to the former state capitol and Georgia College and State University. It also houses the area's only Kroger store and two 24-hour Piggly Wiggly stores.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for including M'ville! Although, I think they changed the piggly wiggly on 441...to a NON-24 hour store...they took down the sign a few weeks back. I'll check on it though. =)

Anonymous said...

The BiLo began life as a Food Lion, one that closed after the mid-90's scandal, and was only about 2 years old. BiLo heavily remodled the store, selling when then parent Ahold acquired Bruno's which operated the two FoodMax locations that originated as Piggly Wiggly's and have reverted to the Pig banner. Kroger has little altered the store. The previous BiLo was in the old Colonial/Big Star location. One of the last A&P's in Georgia outside of Atlanta was across the street at the old Milledgeville Mall, closing in 2000 with the Atlanta division of A&P.

Anonymous said...

I'm originally from the Midwest - grew up there in the 50's and 60's (live in AZ now) but I've always wondered what happened to all of those grocery stores that I knew growing up as a kid - IGA, Jack & Jill, Red Owl, SuperValu, and Piggly Wiggly. I eventually assumed that they all must have been put out of business by bigger chains like WalMart, etc - haven't seen any of the above mentioned stores since about 20 years ago. Nice to see there are still a few Piggly Wigglys somewhere :-) Brings back memories

George P. Burdell said...

The second comment claims BI-LO replaced a Food Lion. I don't believe that's true.

Food Lion was at the Baldwin Plaza shopping center across the street from the old Wal-Mart/Winn-Dixie shopping center. That center opened in 1990 and I can barely remember Food Lion being there before it closed, and I was born in 1991 - so it's believable that Food Lion did close because of the scandal.

The BI-LO that eventually became Kroger was built in 1975, although the rest of the shopping center was not built until 1990. BI-LO was there as long as I can remember as well, and my mother shopped there when she moved back from Atlanta in 1986. BI-LO did a renovation/expansion into part of the adjacent former Goody's just a few years before becoming Kroger.

Lastly, my mother doesn't recall Big Star ever being in Milledgeville. There was a Colonial store downtown when she was young, but it didn't relocate, it just closed. She shopped at Big Star in Atlanta in the 1980s so she assumes she would have shopped at Big Star here if there was a Milledgeville location.