Lucky Stores are a pair of American supermarket chains plus a defunct historical chain. The original chain was founded in San Leandro, California, and operated from 1935 until 1999. The Lucky brand was revived circa 2007 and is now operated as two distinct chains: Albertsons operates Lucky in Utah and Save Mart Supermarkets operates Lucky California in Northern California.
In 1998, American Stores, the corporate parent of the original Lucky chain, was taken over by Albertsons, and by 1999 the Lucky brand had been retired.
In January 2006, SuperValu, CVS Pharmacy and an investment group led by Cerberus Capital Management announced they had agreed to acquire Albertsons for $17.4 billion. Existing Albertsons stores were divided between Supervalu and the Cerberus-led group. The Cerberus-acquired stores became Albertsons, which then sold its Northern California and Northern Nevada stores to Save Mart Supermarkets. The complex deal was not finalized until June 2006.
Around the time that the acquisition was occurring, Grocery Outlet decided to rebrand one of its stores with the Lucky brand and filed a lawsuit in federal court against Albertsons claiming that Albertsons had previously abandoned the trademark in 1999. The rebranded store opened on April 1, 2006. Albertsons filed a counter suit to prevent Grocery Outlet from opening additional stores and for Grocery Outlet to remove signage from its existing Lucky-branded store. On January 4, 2009, a federal judge ruled against Grocery Outlet, finding that Albertsons had continued to use the name Lucky even after the re-branding of its stores.
To strengthen its claim to the Lucky trademark, Albertsons, through its legal successor Supervalu, opened three Lucky-branded stores in Southern California in July 2006. As part of the sale of its Northern California Albertsons division to Save Mart in November 2006, Albertsons gave Save Mart the right to use the Lucky brand in any location in which it had the right to use the Albertsons name, namely Northern California. Save Mart did not begin conversion of some of its Albertsons stores to the Lucky brand until July 2007. Ultimately, the courts ruled in favor of Albertsons by January 2009.
Albertsons' attempt to maintain Lucky-branded stores in the competitive Southern California and Las Vegas marketplaces eventually failed while the four Lucky branded stores in and near Salt Lake City in Utah still survive.
Save Mart changed most of its Albertsons stores in the San Francisco Bay Area to the Lucky California brand, most of which still survive.
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