Remke Markets is a chain of American supermarkets in the Cincinnati metropolitan area. Started in 1897 as a meat market in Covington, Kentucky, by William Remke, the supermarket has grown and now has 11 locations. The supermarket merged with the struggling Bigg's division of SuperValu in 2010.
bigg's
Bigg's was a chain of hypermarkets in southern Ohio, primarily in the Cincinnati area. As a hypermarket, in addition to groceries it sold clothing, general merchandise, lumber, shoes, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, electronics, toys, garden supplies and housewares. It was founded by Hyper Shoppes Inc., a firm owned by three French companies and SuperValu, which bought the entirety of the company in 1994. They used to operate over 13 bigg's stores, but later pared it down to eleven. In 1984, Bigg's opened their first location in the Eastgate mall area of Union Township, a suburb of Cincinnati. Bigg's attempted an expansion into the western United States in 1989 with a location in the Denver, Colorado, suburb of Thornton. Initially it was successful and popular, and was an anchor of the Thornton Town Center. Plans for further Denver metropolitan area locations were discussed but never realized. Over time the Thornton location became less popular and shrank in size, and ultimately ceased operation in 2003. After its demise, it was demolished as part of a redevelopment of the Center, and a Walmart Supercenter was built on its former site.. In 1994, Bigg's, with seven locations, was acquired by SuperValu. In 2006, the company closed its Clarksville, Indiana, location, the company's only location in Indiana. The Clarksville store, unlike the typical bigg's, was a grocery only store. The company has been facing financial losses due to increasing competition with other brands such as Walmart, Meijer and Kroger. In 2006, SuperValu appointed Steve "KAZ" Kaczynski President of bigg's. Since then, Kaczynski has taken over five stores that have been remodeled to their new Premium, Fresh & Healthy formats, that have proved to be highly successful and profitable. In June 2008, Biggs closed their Cincinnati Mills location due to declining sales. It was the mall's largest tenant. In 2009, Kaczynski left, and on March 29, 2010, SuperValu announced that it would be selling six Bigg's locations to Remke Markets and would close the remaining five. On April 8, Remke announced it would be buying a seventh store in Harrison that had been scheduled to close. Remke said that the stores it purchases would retain the Bigg's brand immediately after the transfer, but they may make changes in the future. The stores not purchased were closed inJune 2010. The Bigg's in Eastgate closed and became a second location of Jungle Jim's International Market. The remaining Bigg's were renovated to remove the general merchandise and were renamed Remke Markets bigg's. In October 2013, it was announced that the Remke bigg's banner would be dropped and all Remke bigg's locations would assume the Remke Markets banner. In late 2018, the Rempke location in Mt. Washington hosted a 30% off sale due to closing its location at Skytop Pavilion. An Anderson Township council member said the location had been underperforming for “any period of time” in 2019, and that building upscale apartments was the “highest and best use for the property.”
