Finast was a retail

supermarket A supermarket is a self-service Retail#Types of outlets, shop offering a wide variety of food, Drink, beverages and Household goods, household products, organized into sections. Strictly speaking, a supermarket is larger and has a wider selecti ...

brand that started in the northeastern

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, with headquarters in

Somerville, Massachusetts Somerville ( ) is a city located directly to the northwest of Boston, and north of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge, in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the city had a total population of 81, ...

. Finast was a

syllabic abbreviation An abbreviation () is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method including shortening, contraction, initialism (which includes acronym), or crasis. An abbreviation may be a shortened form of a word, usually ended with a trailing per ...

for "First National Stores." Commonly referred to as "The First National", the stores operated under the First National name for decades, while the Finast acronym was reserved for its store-brand products. Several years later, most of its stores were renamed Finast during a modernization effort. Finast was incorporated as a merger between three regional chains: M. O'Keeffe's, Inc., the John T. Connor Company, and the Ginter Company. The merger occurred on December 28, 1925, and First National Stores was incorporated. M. O'Keeffe's was the largest of the three companies with 330 outlets in 1922, in comparison with 307 Connor stores and 150 Ginter stores that same year. By the time of the 1925 merger, there were 650 M. O’Keeffe stores throughout New England. Initially concentrated in the Boston area, the chain expanded throughout New England and entered New York and New Jersey. It purchased the

Safeway Safeway, Inc. is an American supermarket chain. The chain provides grocery items, food and general merchandise and a variety of specialty departments, such as bakery, delicatessen, floral and pharmacy, as well as Starbucks coffee shops, and veh ...

stores in New York City metropolitan area in 1961. The co-founder and first president of First National Stores was Michael O'Keeffe, an immigrant from County Clare, Ireland. His son Arthur O'Keeffe would go onto succeed him as president in 1933, who would later be succeeded by Arthur's brother Adrian O'Keeffe. The company was purchased by Pick-N-Pay Supermarkets of northeast Ohio in 1978, and the regional headquarters for New England and New York were moved to the distribution center in

Windsor Locks, Connecticut Windsor Locks is a New England town, town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. The town is part of the Capitol Planning Region, Connecticut, Capitol Planning Region. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, its population was ...

, while corporate headquarters were moved to Maple Heights, Ohio. Pick-N-Pay began rebranding the Northeast stores under the Edwards Super Food Store brand. Pick-N-Pay changed its corporate name to First National Supermarkets, Inc. and began rebranding its Pick-N-Pay stores to Finast stores. Finast

One of the largest Finast supermarkets was located in the Cross County Shopping Center in

Yonkers, New York Yonkers () is the List of municipalities in New York, third-most populous city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and the most-populous City (New York), city in Westchester County, New York, Westchester County. A centrally locate ...

. One of the features, as with a few other Finast stores, was the conveyor belt system that allowed customers to drive up to the side of the store and get their grocery bags placed into their cars for convenience. The Dutch retail food conglomerate Ahold, which had entered the U.S. through its purchase of Bi-Lo Supermarkets in the Southeastern U.S. in 1977, purchased Finast in 1988. Ahold completed the process of converting the last Pick-N-Pay stores to Finast in 1994. After purchasing the Stop & Shop grocery chain in 1996, Ahold rebranded most of the Edwards stores to Stop & Shop, while divesting the rest because the FTC required the divestiture of approximately 20 stores as part of the acquisition. The remaining Midwest Finast stores were rebranded as Tops Friendly Markets, Ahold's

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is a Administrative divisions of New York (state), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and county seat of Erie County, New York, Erie County. It lies in Western New York at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of ...

–based unit at the time. Ahold continued to use the Finast brand on its private-label products in its grocery chains, including Giant-Carlisle. The company eventually phased out the Finast brand in favor of products matching each chain's name.

References

{{Supermarkets of the United States Defunct companies based in Connecticut Defunct supermarkets of the United States