Kings Food Markets is an upscale food market chain headquartered in Parsippany, New Jersey, with stores in northern New Jersey, Long Island New York, and Connecticut. Founded in 1936, Kings was bought by UK retailer Marks & Spencer in 1988 and later sold to a US investor group consisting of Angelo, Gordon & Co. and MTN Capital Partners LLC in 2006.
Kings operates today in a competitive market in New Jersey alongside other chains such as ShopRite and Stop & Shop. Many features of today's mid-market stores have been offered at Kings for decades. The chain operates either in, or in close proximity to, affluent suburban towns, and its stores offer a mix of traditional and upmarket grocery items. Kings also offers "COOKINGSTUDIO" cooking classes at its Short Hills, NJ location.
In the 1980s, Kings was one of the last supermarket chains to offer traditional S&H Green Stamps.
Kings was acquired by the British firm Marks and Spencer plc in 1988 but achieved little in terms of expansion into new affluent markets. Marks and Spencer plc later made a number of attempts to sell the chain, putting its desire to further invest in the chain into doubt. New York-based Gristedes made a bid for Kings, but the chain was eventually sold in 2006 to a US investor group.
In 2009, King's acquired Balducci's.
Famous quotes containing the words kings and/or markets:
“His father had never at any time displeased him by asking, -Why have you done thus and so?”
—Bible: Hebrew, 1 Kings 1:6.
“A free-enterprise economy depends only on markets, and according to the most advanced mathematical macroeconomic theory, markets depend only on moods: specifically, the mood of the men in the pinstripes, also known as the Boys on the Street. When the Boys are in a good mood, the market thrives; when they get scared or sullen, it is time for each one of us to look into the retail apple business.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)