Rainbow Foods was a

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 ...

chain in

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

. Founded in 1983, it operated more than 40 stores across the state at its peak and was the second-largest grocery store chain in the Twin Cities, behind

Cub Foods Cub is an American supermarket chain. It operates stores in Minnesota and Illinois. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of United Natural Foods, based in Providence, Rhode Island. History Beginnings Cub Foods was founded by Minnesota-based ...

. However, the arrival of other grocery stores in the market, such as

Aldi Aldi (German pronunciation: ), stylised as ALDI, is the common company brand name of two German multinational family-owned discount supermarket chains operating over 12,000 stores in 18 countries. The chain was founded by brothers Karl and ...

and

Hy-Vee Hy-Vee, Inc. (), is an employee-owned chain of supermarkets in the Midwestern and Southern United States, with more than 280 locations in Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wisconsin, with stores planned in ...

in the 2000s and 2010s caused the grocery store chain to shrink to 27 locations by May 2014. Soon after, nine more closed and eighteen were sold by then-owner Roundy's; only six of these kept the Rainbow name.

History

Rainbow Foods was founded by Sid Applebaum and D. B. Reinhart of Gateway Foods in 1983 and grew to become the second-largest grocery chain in the

Minneapolis–Saint Paul Minneapolis–Saint Paul is a metropolitan area in the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States centered around the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi, Minnesota River, Minnesota, and St. Croix River (Wisconsin–Minnesota), ...

area. The chain was sold to Texas-based wholesaler

Fleming Companies Fleming Companies, Inc. was founded as Lux Mercantile in Topeka, Kansas, in 1915 by O. A. Fleming, Gene Wilson and Samuel Lux. In 1921 the company's name was changed to Fleming-Wilson, and in 1941, the company name was changed again to The Fleming ...

in 1994. During the 1990s, Rainbow built several stores in the

suburbs. After the sale to Roundys in 2003, Rainbow began opening Leeann Chin restaurants in its stores, starting with the Maple Grove and Bloomington stores in July 2004; over the next couple of years, Leeann Chin opened 10 restaurants inside Rainbow Foods stores; by 2007, however, they were down to just two locations, which eventually closed.

Decline

The decline of Rainbow Foods arguably started in 2000, when Fleming put Rainbow and several other chains up for sale. At the time, possible buyers of Rainbow Foods included grocery giants

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 ...

and

Albertsons Albertsons Companies, Inc. is an American grocery company founded and headquartered in Boise, Idaho. With 2,253 stores as of the third quarter of fiscal year 2020 and 270,000 employees as of fiscal year 2019, the company is the second-large ...

. Albertsons was very close to buying Rainbow Foods, but backed out of the deal. When Fleming sold Rainbow Foods in 2003, Albertsons was a Rainbow suitor, but backed out again. In 2003,

decided to sell 31 of the chains leases to

Milwaukee Milwaukee is the List of cities in Wisconsin, most populous city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the List of United States cities by population, 31st-most populous city in the United States ...

based Roundys for 82.5 million dollars. Fleming decided to close the remaining 12 locations it had owned and pull out of the chain all together. In a surprise move on May 7, 2014, Roundys announced that it had sold 18 of its Rainbow Foods stores to a consortium of area competitors and businesses for 65 million dollars. These competitors were Lunds and Byerlys, SuperValu owner of

, the number one grocery store in Minnesota, Jerry's Enterprises, Haug Enterprises, and Radermacher Enterprises. The company could not find a bidder for nine of the remaining stores it owned and they all closed on July 22, 2014.
The stores that were purchased by the consortium were converted into Cub and Lunds and Byerlys, while six remained Rainbow locations owned by the various members of the consortium. In September 2014, four months after buying the Rainbow Foods location in West St. Paul, supermarket owner Jerry's Enterprises said it now planned to close the store in November. In a letter sent to the city, Jerry's said the company had "developed plans based on business considerations" to close its Rainbow store at 1660 S. Robert St. The Rainbow on Minneapolis' Lake Street was also slated to close, Jerry's said. The stores joined nine other Rainbow supermarkets that were shut down in July, 2014, after Rainbow's owner Roundys left the Twin Cities market. After the closures the brand only had four remaining stores. The two Rainbow Foods stores on Lake Street and on Robert Street were said to close by November 9, 2014. After the closures there were only four Rainbow stores left. Another Rainbow store, in Plymouth, was converted into a Cub in July 2016, which closed two years later and is now a

store. After this conversion, three Rainbow foods remained. On September 21, 2017, the Rainbow Foods at the Midway Shopping Center in St. Paul closed. It closed due to a

soccer stadium Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

being built on the property, requiring the existing store and part of the mall to be demolished. The Richfield HUB location off 66th street closed in March 2018, leaving one remaining Rainbow location in Maplewood. On September 14, 2018, it was announced that the Rainbow Foods in Maplewood, would close on Monday, September 17, officially marking the end of Rainbow Foods after 35 years; its building was converted into a Hy-Vee, which opened in June 2021. At the time of its closing, the Maplewood Rainbow was owned and operated by SuperValu, which also owned the Cub across the street.

References

External links

* {{Supermarkets of the United States Defunct companies based in Minnesota Defunct supermarkets of the United States Supermarkets of the United States