Harriet...
When I living in TN, Krogers was always a favorite of mine, though Piggly Wiggly was very popular as well. In NO there was a huge family store called Schwegmanns that I loved to shop at. Not sure if its still standing, but they daily made the most amazing french loaves that every one raved about. When the bread came out of the oven, the store made an over head announcement and people would swarm the counters. People were know to eat the bread as they shopped and you could buy a single can of beer, pop the top and drink it while eating bread and shopping for groceries...Only in NO. Plus their meat counter was to die for. They show cased huge hunks of meet of all varieties. I could choose a hunk of chuck and then tell the butcher to grind it however I wanted it...usually I would tell him, grind it three times in the medium large setting. The butcher shop was opened to the back and you could watch the butcher work on your order...I loved the place.
When I first moved Orange Beach, AL which iis next to Gulf Shores and on the Gulf of Mexico, my choices were Piggly Wiggly or Publix. I was surprised to see Publics there because I always thought of it as a Florida based store, and it was only found there in that part of AL. The stores here are family based although one has sold out to Krogers but has kept their family name. We also have several Hispanic stores, which have American names but know that most of their customers are Hispanic. I only go there with my son because he is fluent in Spanish and I love listening to him talk to all the vendors. They are also a low end store.
Back in the late 60's in Knoxville, we had a store called Cass Walker. He was a white guy who catered to the "colored" population selling things like pigs feet and collard greens which at that time were very cheap to buy. His real claim to fame though was his early morning show called, what else, the Cass Walker show. It was were Dolly Parton, who grew up in a small town Seivervill 30 miles from Knoxville, got her start, and where I first fell in love with her.