Joe Coulombe, a struggling comfort retailer proprietor in Los Angeles, determined in 1967 to open a grocery chain to attraction to the small however rising variety of well-educated, well-traveled shoppers that mainstream supermarkets have been ignoring.
Coulombe acknowledged that worldwide journey was about to blow up due to the brand new Boeing 747 hitting the market. For the title of his new retailer, Coulombe landed on Dealer Joe’s to evoke unique photos of the South Seas. The title was impressed by Dealer Vic’s, a well-liked Tiki Bar restaurant began in California.
However it caught, and the primary Dealer Joe’s opened in Pasadena, California, in 1967. The situation was perfect for his new goal buyer, surrounded by school campuses, a hospital and massive engineering companies.
Nautical theme
The primary Dealer Joe’s retailer had a nautical theme with marine artifacts together with a ship’s bell, fish netting and half of a rowboat. The take a look at counter was an island with a roof. Staff wore Polynesian shirts and Bermuda shorts. The supervisor was referred to as captain and the assistant was first mate. And lilting Hawaiian music performed over the loudspeakers.
However the merchandise appeared nothing like what you’d discover at a Dealer Joe’s right this moment.
The unique retailer had a typical comfort store assortment of groceries, together with discounted magazines, books, socks and hosiery, data and picture ending. The large draw, nonetheless, was the alcohol choice.
California had Truthful Commerce legal guidelines on alcohol, so producers set minimal costs and it was unlawful to go under them. Since Coulombe could not compete by providing low costs, he acknowledged he needed to supply all kinds to face out.
The primary Dealer Joe’s boasted of getting the world’s largest assortment of alcohol — 100 manufacturers of Scotch, 50 manufacturers of bourbon and gin and 14 forms of tequila.
Coulombe finally discovered a loophole in California’s Truthful Commerce legal guidelines that allowed his store to import high-end French wine and promote it for decrease costs than rivals, serving to him attain wine connoisseurs. (It might not be till years later that Dealer Joe’s launched its well-known $1.99 Charles Shaw wine, referred to as “Two-Buck Chuck.”)
Well being craze
By the early Seventies, Coulombe seized on the rising well being meals motion, believing it could attraction to the identical kind of consumers who additionally occurred to be wine connoisseurs.
“His concepts on advertising and marketing groceries got here from his advertising and marketing of wine,” Benjamin Lorr mentioned.
Dealer Joe’s first private-label product was granola, after which it began including contemporary squeezed orange juice, nutritional vitamins, nuts and dried meals and cheese. At one level, Dealer Joe’s was the most important US importer of brie.
Coulombe grew to become immersed within the well being meals tradition in Berkeley and San Francisco.
“I employed a younger hippie girl out of the College of California at Santa Cruz to show us the lingo,” he mentioned.
Brandenburg Brownies and Sir Issac Newtons
In 1977, Coulombe remade Dealer Joe’s once more — setting it on a path that will be extra acquainted to right this moment’s clients.
“As we developed Dealer Joe’s, its biggest departure from the norm wasn’t its measurement or its decor,” Coulombe mentioned. “It was our dedication to product data, one thing which was completely international to the mass-merchant tradition, and our turning our backs to branded merchandise.”
The corporate even positioned its private-label names and branding to attach with well-educated customers — Brandenburg Brownies and Sir Issac Newtons, for instance — Coulombe mentioned.
Creating sturdy private-label choices to rival nationwide manufacturers can be certainly one of his legacies within the grocery store trade, mentioned Lorr. “That modified the stability of the grocery trade. Out of the blue, grocers are empowered in a means they weren’t.”
However Coulombe resisted opening up dozens of latest shops.
The handful of shops Coulombe did open have been in Southern California, which match the demographic profile he was in search of — academics, musicians, journalists and different professionals.
Aldi executives would journey from Germany to go to Dealer Joe’s about yearly, however they took a hands-off method to overseeing the rising chain.
By the point Coulombe stepped down as chief government in 1988, Dealer Joe’s had 27 California shops and an estimated $150 million in gross sales.
“My successors at Dealer Joe’s have taken a 30-store chain nationwide with exceptional adherence to the fundamental ideas we began out with,” Coulombe mentioned in 2010.
