10 Winn-Dixie Habits That Separate Florida Old-Timers From Newcomers

Loyalty to Winn-Dixie was never just about the lowest price on the shelf.

It’s a homegrown, Jacksonville-born, been-there-since-your-childhood kind of grocery store, and it shows up in a whole stack of little habits a new arrival hasn’t picked up yet.

You either have them or you don’t.

These are the signs that mark a longtime Winn-Dixie shopper from someone who just moved to Florida.

Making a Beeline for Beef

Winn-Dixie built its reputation on beef, billing itself as “The Beef People” in television ads going back to the 1970s.

The chain stamped that slogan right back on its stores.

A longtime shopper treats it as a promise and works the meat case first, before anything else lands in the cart.

Beef first.

Ask a native where the good steaks are, and the answer comes back before you finish the sentence.

Ordering the Chicken by Name

The fried chicken in the Winn-Dixie deli case has a name.

It’s Lip Lickin’ Chicken, a deli staple the chain retired years ago and then brought back as part of its Florida comeback.

A regular asks for it by that name, no menu board required.

The newcomer squints and points.

That eight-piece box has been a Sunday supper and a beach-day dinner across the state for decades, grabbed on the way out with a container of potato wedges.

Say the name right, and the person behind the counter knows you’ve been coming a while.

Still Calling It Fuelperks

For years, a $50 grocery run at Winn-Dixie earned you five cents off a gallon of gas at more than a hundred Shell stations.

Shoppers planned their fill-ups around it.

That was fuelperks!

Winn-Dixie ended it in 2017, swapped in a points program, and later landed on SE Grocers rewards, which turns your spending into grocery savings instead of cheaper gas.

A veteran still says “let me check my fuelperks,” and anyone who has shopped there a while knows exactly what they mean.

The Liquor Store Next Door

Many Winn-Dixie stores share a wall with a Winn-Dixie liquor store.

The package store next door is its own business.

It’s the only spot in the building that sells bourbon, vodka, and rum, since beer and wine ride the grocery shelves and the hard liquor lives one door over.

A regular swings through for a bottle of bourbon, then rolls the cart back to the groceries without a second thought.

Two stores, one stop.

Rooting for a Florida Chain

Winn-Dixie has been in Jacksonville since 1925.

After years of shrinking, the chain is pulling back to focus on Florida and southern Georgia on purpose.

Floridians see a hometown company. For many transplants, Winn-Dixie is just a store that isn’t Publix.

Old loyalty runs deep.

Ask an old-timer why they drive past two other supermarkets to shop there, and you’ll get a shrug about how Winn-Dixie was there first.

Buying the House Brands

Winn-Dixie regulars fill half their cart with store brands they've trusted since childhood.

The store brand that gives them away is Chek, the house soda that comes in more than twenty flavors, from cola to a cream soda that turns up at every backyard cookout.

Nobody grabs a case of Chek by accident.

It's a childhood taste.

A veteran reaches past the name brands for the SE Grocers label and never checks the price.

These labels have sat on the shelf longer than most shoppers have been alive.

When Winn-Dixie Ran the South

An old-timer remembers when Winn-Dixie was the supermarket in the South, the one everybody shopped.

At its height, the chain ran about 1,207 stores, ranked among the largest grocers in the country, and raised its dividend 52 years in a row.

Then bigger rivals and a run of bankruptcies shrank it.

Those days are gone.

Mention that Winn-Dixie once towered over Publix, and a longtime shopper will nod like you finally said something true.

They watched the whole thing from the same parking lot.

Pulling for the Daytona Car

Winn-Dixie and stock-car racing go way back.

The name has ridden on race cars and hung over the grandstands for decades, from the old Winn-Dixie 300 at Talladega to a return to Daytona this August, the first time the chain has put its name on that race since 2008.

A native catches the name on the sponsor board on race day.

It feels personal.

To a lot of drivers who grew up on the chain, seeing that name at the Speedway is like watching a neighbor take the track.

Spotting the Red-Hand Tag

Look for a little red hand on a Winn-Dixie price tag.

It marks the "Down Down" program, the chain's lower prices on more than 150 everyday items.

A regular spots it across the aisle.

They never slow down.

The old-timer already knows which aisle ends carry the red hand and where the deeper markdowns sit two shelves down.

It's a code you learn by shopping, not by reading a sign.

When Your Store Turns Aldi

Winn-Dixie has bounced through more owners than most shoppers can count.

The chain filed for bankruptcy in 2005 and again in 2018, then sold to Aldi in 2024, before a group led by C&S Wholesale Grocers bought about 170 stores back and spun them into an independent, Florida-run company in 2025.

Owners come and go.

Some locations flipped to Aldi along the way.

When a newcomer's nearest Winn-Dixie turns into an Aldi overnight, they're stunned.

A veteran barely blinks, having watched stores open, close, change signs, and change hands for forty years.