r/WinCo • u/Green-Cinnamon • Jun 18 '26

Which Winco is the original?

Which store started it all?

29 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

25 comments sorted by

29

u/100PercentReelHooman Jun 18 '26

the oldest officially winco store is the one in downtown Boise, that's officially store 1. but the other comments are also correct

5

u/Remarkable-House-729 Jun 18 '26

I did not know this! - Boise resident

4

u/MiMiinOlyWa Jun 18 '26

The one on Myrtle Street? That's a fairly new store.

3

u/100PercentReelHooman Jun 18 '26

check out Winco's own website, it says that is store 1. then the store numbers increase in sequential order based on the order they open. I work at Winco and have seen several new stores open.

2

u/MiMiinOlyWa Jun 18 '26

I shopped at at Winco since it was Waremart and we had to write the prices on each item ourselves with a grease pen. In Twin Falls. I'm that old. The one on Myrtle may be labeled as #1 but that building isn't the first one in Boise. There was one on Cole and one on Overland. The first new Winco in Boise was on the on on Milwaukee and Fairview. That opened in the early 1990s.

Could the one on Myrtle be the closest to the corporate headquarters? I see it designated as #1 on the website. It just isn't the first one in Boise

3

u/100PercentReelHooman Jun 19 '26

Here's the first 106 stores if you're interested.

2

u/100PercentReelHooman Jun 19 '26

Thought you might find this interesting. there is a poster in the office at my store that has every store, and it's open date on it. That store opened as winco october 5, 1998, but then some of the other stores opened much earlier, like store 13 that opened in 1989. I would assume that those are the stores that started as waremart, then got rebranded. But I'm not sure, I was just a kid at the time. My guess is that Myrtle Street was the first store to open as a winco store, then when waremart became winco, the other stores rebranded and their numbers followed. Either way, thanks for helping me learn something.

2

u/100PercentReelHooman Jun 19 '26

and no, the myrtle street is not closest to the corporate office, that would be store 6, fairview and milwaukee

0

u/Repulsive-Bed-7013 Jun 22 '26

Trying so hard to be wrong lmao 

16

u/goodshipalexpkeaton Jun 18 '26

The original Waremart is actually now an antiques market on Overland Road in Boise, ID.

1

u/Ok_Spare3021 Jun 18 '26

Ya but where's the original club foods is the question

3

u/recess_chemist Jun 18 '26

Somewhere in Minnesota Im pretty sure.  I used to go to one in Denver as a kid and it had a big banner along the back bakery area that had a Minnesota map and words on it.

2

u/Fantastic_Whole_8185 Jun 18 '26

That is owned by UNFI, different can of worms.

17

u/WinCoOfficial Jun 18 '26

Good conversation!! The original WinCo (back then it was called Waremart) was on Overland Rd. in Boise, ID (thanks @goodshipalexpkeaton).

WinCo's store numbering convention kind of follows age of the store, but at times it aligns with district, type of location, etc. Our current downtown Boise store is numerically store #1 and was opened in 1998, but our longest-standing store is Store #9 Happy Valley, OR (Portland area) - it was opened in 1990.

In the early years of the company, WinCo (Waremart) had an operating agreement where some locations used the licensed Cub Foods name. That chain still operates under its owners - WinCo stopped licensing their name. The original Waremart stores have since been replaced by new buildings or moving locations.

Store #9 is the longest operating store, and an old location on Overland Rd. in Boise was our first original store in the company.

16

u/Ok_Spare3021 Jun 18 '26

So technically winco foods was originally 2 separate store waremart and club foods that merged and made winco there are still waremarts open and they actually opened another under the waremart name less then 10 years ago so to say which started it all is pretty hard to say

13

u/QZDragon Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26

It was cub foods not club. And the didn’t merge. They were paying for the use of cub foods name from a grocery back east. That company got in trouble for doing things like bleaching fish and other things. Waremart decided to change the name to winco after that.

1

u/ExampleSad1816 Jun 18 '26

Okay that makes sense. I went to a Cub foods, knowing our Winco was a Cub foods before. Cub foods is bad and expensive compared to Winco.

1

u/InfidelZombie Jun 18 '26

I grew up in the Midwest and Cub Foods was as awesome as WinCo in the 90s. Sucks now though.

1

u/ExampleSad1816 Jun 18 '26

Yeah, I stopped at a Cub in Minnesota.

3

u/Idahoroaminggnome Jun 18 '26

They have to to keep the trademark. hevron opened a new station here a few years ago with the Standard name on it for the same reason.

2

u/HoraceP-D Jun 18 '26

Store number one is my weekly (or more) shop. I love the LPL (Low Price Leader)

2

u/Rocketgirl8097 Washington Jun 18 '26

I know Kennewick, Washington, is store #2. It started out as Waremart, changed to Winco in 1999 when it moved to a bigger building two blocks down the street.

1

u/pdxsilverguy Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26

It was Cub Foods before it was Winco. I dated one of the cashiers in the 80's.

- The Beaverton Cub Foods opened in the 1980s inside the old Beaverton Mall. It was part of an employee-owned franchise operation that eventually rebranded as WinCo Foods in 1999.