“Saunders thought, ‘Well you don’t need all these clerks to run a grocery store. Saunders changed the way stores did business, Freeman said. “When you went to a store, you called out your order to a clerk, and a clerk - listening to you - gathered what you wanted and then you paid,” said Mike Freeman, who has written about the rise and fall of Piggly Wiggly founder Clarence Saunders. In those days, people didn’t used to pick up their own items in a store. The first Piggly Wiggly opened in 1916 in Memphis. One developer has studied putting apartments and retail space there. Sutton said she sees Piggly Wiggly as the latest victim of the city’s changing landscape. “Probably have to catch a bus to go down to Kroger or Walmart, or pay somebody to take you,” she said. Now, she and other tenants are unsure how they’ll get by. She went to the Piggly Wiggly about three times a day on her motorized wheelchair, she said.
Sutton lives two blocks away from the store that closed at a public housing building for the elderly and people with disabilities. The store closing is especially tough for Gwendolyn Sutton, who has a hard time walking. The store filled a critical need for some residents who don’t have easy access to groceries. Although the chain has two more locations in Nashville and hundreds across the country, community members said the closure feels personal. This Piggly Wiggly closed its doors for good in April. “Everybody down here is on a first-name basis,” Blair said.
In the last week that the Piggly Wiggly near Nashville’s downtown was open, Ken Blair, a regular, said the store reminded him of the small mom-and-pop shops he used to go to.
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