On September 6, 1916, Clarence Saunders founded Piggly Wiggly in Memphis, Tennessee, introducing what the company describes as America’s first true self-service grocery store. At a time when shoppers typically handed a list to a clerk, who retrieved goods from behind a counter, Saunders invited customers to select products for themselves.
His store at 79 Jefferson Street used entry turnstiles, shopping baskets, open shelves, clearly marked packaged goods, and a central checkout. Its guided, continuous path led customers through the merchandise before they reached the register—a retail design Saunders later patented.
The shift did more than make shopping feel more independent. Self-service reduced the need for clerks to assemble each order, encouraged standardized pricing and packaged, branded goods, and helped establish features now familiar in grocery retail: open aisles, customer baskets, item pricing, and checkout stations. Piggly Wiggly’s model was rapidly copied and franchised, making it an important precursor to the modern supermarket.
Image: Front of a Piggly Wiggly grocery store in Chicago, Illinois, 1926. Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
