The Ultimate Guide To West Coast Grocery Store Chains

Whether you live on the West Coast or are planning a visit, it's always nice to know about the grocery store chains that are available around you. While some are fairly ordinary, others have big personalities that keep customers coming in the door for all they have to offer.

When creating our guide to West Coast grocery store chains, we chose chains that only exist in the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. While you can probably think of some grocery stores that got their start on the West Coast, like Trader Joe's, Costco, Fred Meyer, and Raley's, we only included the ones on our list that have never expanded eastward. So, they're still all exclusive to the West Coast. While there are still a few other smaller West Coast grocery chains out there like Super King Markets in Southern California and Metropolitan Market in Washington, we are only listing ones that have more than 10 locations each. Once you've read about grocery store chains that are unique to the West Coast, you'll likely have a list of ones you'll want to visit.

A West Coast grocery store chain you'll likely come across when in California is Ralphs since it currently has 183 total locations across the state — more than any other chain on our list. It's also the oldest grocery store chain on our list, with the first one opening in Los Angeles in 1873. The store got its start after its founder, George Ralphs, had a hunting accident that left him needing to change from his profession as a bricklayer since he was left with only one arm. His brother Walter soon joined him in the business, and the rest is history. Ralphs is currently owned by Kroger.

There are several reasons customers enjoy Ralphs. One is the fact that you can find nearly anything you want, including specialty items not easily found elsewhere. You can also save a lot with store coupons and by shopping clearance items. Ralphs features a pharmacy, deli, and bakery. Not only are the staff members friendly, but it's a full-service store, meaning that it hasn't abandoned the idea of bagging your groceries and taking them out to the car for you.

Stater Bros. Markets is another store that you'll only find in California. Like Ralphs, it's available all over the state with 169 different locations. However, you'll only find it in seven counties in Southern California. Stater Bros. has been around since twin brothers Cleo and Leo Stater bought it in the middle of the Great Depression in 1936 by selling their Chevrolets in order to make a $600 down payment and financing the rest.

Customers appreciate the prices at Stater Bros., especially in the meat department, which has some of the best prices in the area. When the butcher cuts your meat for you, you can also ask them to season it the way you want. The store also has good deals on store brand items and wines. But there are other services they enjoy as well. The store also has a bakery, a service deli, a floral department, and fresh sushi.

Vallarta Supermarkets is the only specialty West Coast grocery store chain on our list that specializes in international cuisine. It got its start in 1985 with the Gonzalez family from Mexico. Its original claim to fame was that it offered traditional Mexican meat cuts. However, it's grown over the years to offer so much more. Currently, there are 58 locations across 13 Southern California counties.

These days, Vallarta Supermarkets have lots of extras. Its Carnes Frescas section includes Mexican cuts and pre-marinated meats. It has produce from around the world, including Latin American favorites like chayote and mango. The Pescadería is where you can buy fresh seafood from around the world, while the Cevichería offers 12 types of ceviche. At the Tortillería, you can pick up a variety of sizes and thicknesses of freshly-made corn and flour tortillas along with various flavors of fresh tamales. La Cocina creates ready-made meals and snacks for customers. If you're looking for cheese, Mexican sauces like guacamole and salsa, or deli items, you'll want to visit the Cremería. And if you're in the mood for fresh juices or aquas frescas drinks, you'll want to visit the juice bar, known as La Isla. There's also a floral section (Florería), a bakery (Panadería), ordinary groceries with a focus on Hispanic products, bulk foods, liquor, and a candy section (Dulcería).

QFC (Quality Food Centers) is a West Coast grocery store chain you'll find in two West Coast states. There are 55 QFCs in Washington and four in Oregon (in Portland). However, at one time, there were as many as 75 open. The chain got its start in Seattle, Washington, in 1955, expanding outward from there. It's undergone several ownership changes over the years, and it's expanded by buying up other grocery stores and turning them into QFCs along the way. Today, it's owned by Kroger.

In addition to regular grocery store offerings, QFC has a pharmacy, deli, and bakery. Customers seem to like the pharmacy because it's not as busy as places like Walgreens. Plus, it offers vaccines. However, customers on social media have complained about the quality as well as out of control prices. Plus, with fewer staff, it's been impossible to keep the store as clean as it once was. Another complaint is that the store keeps reinventing itself, which has led to the loss of a lot of products customers once purchased. Others haven't been happy about the meat and seafood service counter being replaced by packaged products. However, the wine selection still seems to be pretty good.

While Lucky has expanded beyond its origins in California, there is a branch called Lucky California that you'll find nowhere else except California. There are a total of 61 Lucky Californias open throughout Northern California. The first Lucky opened in the middle of the Great Depression in 1935 in Berkeley, California. Lucky California is now part of The Save Mart Companies, which also own Save Mart, Lucky, FoodMaxx, and MaxxValue.

The prices at Lucky California might not be as good as some other area grocery stores unless you pay attention to sales ads. However, the customer service is great and selection is usually good, with customers especially appreciating its extremely fresh produce and meat. The meat department even offers a free knife-sharpening service. It's also a great place if you're looking for international foods. You can find several fresh food options prepared in the store, like holiday meals, cakes, pies, party trays, breakfast and brunch, charcuterie, sandwich platters, sushi, and dessert platters. You can also pick up wine while you're there.

Gelson's is a more upscale California supermarket. You'll find 28 Gelson's Markets open between San Diego and Santa Barbara, California. While most are fairly close to the coast, the one in Palm Springs is a little farther inland. Brothers Eugene and Bernie Gelson opened up the first Gelson's supermarket in Burbank in 1951 after having grown up in a grocery-store-owning family. The first ones were smaller, but it wasn't long before they were able to open a more modern-looking 25,000-square-foot one with wide aisles and plenty of products. Today, this West Coast supermarket chain belongs to Japanese-based TPG Capital.

Gelson's offers catering, hot and prepared foods and meals, and even ready-to-eat meal delivery. Additionally, it has stations like a bakery, poké bar, sushi section, rotisserie chicken, soup and salad bar, on-tap kombucha and cold brew bar, and floral department. Gelson's focuses on having a great selection of produce. Plus, there are plenty of interesting food items and ones that are difficult to find elsewhere. With older and often richer customers (think movie stars and coastal-dwelling clientele), the chain focuses on gourmet food, food quality, and convenience. With fancier foods, you're also likely to see fancier prices like a $20 carton of organic strawberries or a $30 bag of cotton candy grapes.

The first Bristol Farms grocery store appeared in Rolling Hills, California, in 1982. It was created by Irv Gronsky and Mike Burbank with an idea of giving customers access to a specialty grocery store that also had a bakery and a butcher shop inside. You can find Bristol Farms Good Food Markets in 14 different locations. They're located between Santa Barbara and Newport Beach, California, with most in the Los Angeles area. However, there is one all the way out in Palm Desert, California. The West Hollywood location was once a restaurant the stars loved, named Chasen's.

Bristol Farms is another West Coast grocery store chain that sets its prices fairly high. While the prices may be triple or more what you'll find at Ralphs or Whole Foods, customers on social media say the quality isn't necessarily any better. However, it is a clean store with a high level of service and friendliness from employees. Plus, it has a deli, lots of specialty cheeses, a florist, lots of international offerings, a coffee and juice bar, sushi, cakes, and catering.

Bristol Farms has also started to open locations called Bristol Farms Newfound Market, which is an upscale grocery store combined with an artisan Italian restaurant called Viaggio Pizzeria as well as six fast-casual food court-style restaurants with global appeal.

New Seasons Market is the youngest West Coast grocery store chain on our list. When it first opened in 2000, it was just local to Portland, Oregon. From the beginning, it had an aim of connecting customers to local food sources, organic products, local makers, and community organizations. Now that it has grown to 21 stores, it's beloved by customers in all of its locations in Oregon and Washington.

It has a dedication to sustainability and keeping things local. New Seasons Market has paid special attention to making its packaging more sustainable. New Season Market's private label brand gets the majority of its ingredients from sources that are no more than 500 miles away.

Tasting Table ranked New Seasons Market as the 10th best grocery store in the Pacific Northwest. However, it is an upscale store on the expensive side. For example, you can easily find a $10 loaf of bread there. Customers who shop elsewhere might experience sticker shock, but they still may come back for good prices on some organic and local options. Although it's a small chain, it also competes well with larger chains for having a great deli counter. It also has grab and go options, a coffee shop, and interesting classes.

Nugget Markets might be small, but some customers compare it even more favorably than Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. Like Trader Joe's, the packaging and visual presentation of the store is part of the appeal. Will and Mack Stille were the father and son duo who opened Nugget Market in Woodland, California, 1926, and the store remains under family ownership. However, it has spread throughout Northern California and now has 13 locations in Sacramento Valley and Marin County.

While it can be on the pricier side to shop here if you don't catch sales, customers appreciate that the Nugget Markets have high-quality products, support local farmers, are aesthetically pleasing, clean, friendly, and provide a fun shopping experience. The chain has a bakery, deli, specialty cheeses (over 400 varieties currently), prepared foods, premade sandwiches, smoothies, freshly-squeezed juices, coffee, lots of wine, as well as a selection of imported ethnic food. It's also fairly progressive, with half of its stores using Bloom Energy fuel cells to provide clean energy for the store around the clock.

Haggen is another West Coast grocery store that had its improbable but enduring start during the Great Depression (in 1933). Although it was family-owned for years, Albertsons owns it now. Under Albertsons it briefly ventured into California with a plan for a huge expansion, but the plan was a complete failure. There also used to be locations in Oregon. However, you'll only find Haggens in Washington now, but there are 15 locations.

Tasting Table ranked Haggen as the ninth best grocery store in the Pacific Northwest. It's a friendly gourmet grocery store that offers cheaper products alongside more expensive organic items. Its beef comes from farms in the Northwestern region of the U.S., and lots of its produce and products like kombucha are local as well. The store has a bakery, which is famous for its doughnuts. You can also visit the deli to get premade foods like meal components, salads, and sandwiches. The store also has a florist, any of the garden plants you find for sale are ones you can expect to grow well in Washington. Several of the stores also have Starbucks coffee bars inside. You can also get your prescriptions filled at its pharmacy.

Jons Fresh Marketplace is known for its wide variety of international products. It has 13 locations and is mainly localized to the greater Los Angeles area in Southern California with one a bit farther South in Westminster. It has been around since 1977 and has managed to remain family-owned all this time. Because the original owners were immigrants from Armenia, they made sure to include plenty of international foods among the store's offerings.

Even today, different locations take notice of what people from different cultures living in its various neighborhoods prefer, and they try to cater their selections to fit. So, while the stores offer ordinary items that you'd expect to see in any grocery store, it also has an international service deli and lots of international groceries. For example, you might find Russian deli meat, tvorog in the dairy section, kulich among the baked goods, or other international items that aren't easy to find just anywhere. Additionally, it has a dairy and deli, liquor section, bakery, and florist. Plus, you can get fresh seafood and meat from its butcher area. Something else you might find includes a Smokin' BBQ Meats counter or other specialty offerings, depending on the location.

Erewhon Market has become such a trendy place to shop that it even has a membership program for those who are obsessed with the store. Despite only existing in California currently, it originated on the East Coast in Boston. It was started in 1966 by Aveline and Michio Kushi, a Japanese couple who wanted to open a grocery store with natural and organic foods. Interestingly, they named it after a book about an AI uprising that inspired George Orwell's "1984" — "Erewhon." The total number of Erewhon stores now stands at 12, and they're mainly in the Los Angeles area, reaching into Calabasas and Pasadena and down into Manhattan Beach.

Today, Erewhon gets a lot of its products from Southern Californian and family-owned farms and brands. It even uses local DJs to create its music playlists. Smoothies, breakfast, hot bar items, an all-day café, and Erewhon-branded merch are among the extra offerings that keep its customers happy. The chain has a commitment to offer organic, non-GMO, and non-irradiated produce, as well as grass-fed and cage-free meat products, and wild-caught or sustainably-farmed seafood. It also offers fair trade and fair-wage products. Additionally, it seeks to be eco-conscious and use low-impact packaging. Like Jons Fresh Marketplace, Erewhon tries to match the offerings in each location to the community that shops there. However, the prices are fairly high, like $10 for a quarter of a watermelon, $20 for a carton of strawberries, and $30 for a small bag of circular ice.

Another health food grocery store that you'll find in California is Mother's Market & Kitchen (also known as Mother's California Market.) This one was created in 1978 by a group of yoga practitioners who had a plant-based diet in mind. It's grown into a chain of 11 stores in Southern California, ranging from Los Angeles, south to Laguna Woods. There were 12, but the one in Manhattan Beach closed in 2024 and was replaced with an Erewhon.

Mother's Market is known for its organic produce, specialty foods, supplements, a juice bar, and homemade foods from the kitchen. While it has a lot of specialty plant-based foods, it also has meat (like grass-fed beef), and some better-for-you beer and wine that boast being vegan, organic, and sulfite-free. If you order from the kitchen, you'll find a lot of options to fit special diets, like vegetarian, vegan, or gluten-free ones. However, after the chain was purchased by private investors in 2016, it seems that some customers don't like the changes to the kitchen's menu, including the removal of menu favorites. While some people compare it to Erewhon, it's certainly much cheaper, landing closer to the prices at Whole Foods, albeit sometimes higher.

Market of Choice is a chain of West Coast grocery stores that you'll only find if you're in Oregon. It ranked sixth in Tasting Table's list of the best Pacific Northwest grocery stores. As of 2025, there will be 12 locations, all in the Western part of the state. The store has been family-owned since it opened back in 1979 and has tried to source locally and regionally as much as it can. While it has a lot of organic and natural products, it also has ordinary products as well.

The chain has a lot of products that are made in-store, such as entrées, soups, sides, salad bar, sandwiches, pizza, sushi, Mexican food, plant-based breakfast items, fresh coffee, and baked goods. Some of the other features you'll find at Market of Choice include bulk bins, an old-fashioned butcher shop, a florist, coffee beans from independent roasters, a cheese shop, and a large selection of beer and wine. Customers find it compares to Whole Foods, except that it's smaller. However, that makes it easier to get what you want quickly.