5 Publix Traditions Floridians Have Kept Alive for Decades

Publix picked its slogan in 1954 and hasn’t touched a word of it since.

That’s 72 years without a single rewrite.

Many Floridians have held up their end too, in habits nobody at the company ever had to advertise.

These are the Publix traditions Floridians have kept alive for decades.

1. Stepping on the Publix Scale

Publix has kept a free scale near the front doors since the 1930s, back when a bathroom scale at home was a luxury and a public scale downtown cost a coin.

The company called those scales people weighers.

Shoppers still step on, and store employees say the next most common use is weighing a suitcase before a flight.

Keeping them running takes work now.

Mettler Toledo stopped building the scales in 2015, so Publix keeps spares in Lakeland and sends technicians out to repair the scales still in service.

One technician worked on a scale built in 1971.

It still works.

Publix skips the scale in its newest stores, and the scales still working sit in Florida, where shoppers keep them busy and Publix keeps sending the repair truck.

2. Watching the Publix Christmas Ad

Publix spent its early advertising years selling groceries, and then it rebuilt the holiday spots around families.

The shift started in 1989 with a commercial called Last Train Home.

Nothing in it sells groceries.

Many Floridians treat the new Publix ad as the start of December, watching for it before anybody drags a tree into the living room.

The 2025 story followed a girl whose birthday lands on Christmas Day, and Publix put a Merry Birthday cake in the bakery case to match.

The cake came in two sizes.

That ad premiered during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

3. Storm Runs at Publix

A Publix manager in Punta Gorda told federal researchers his store went nine days without power after Hurricane Charley in 2004.

He couldn’t sell milk, produce, or insulin for any of it.

Across the 2004 and 2005 seasons, at least 600 stores closed at one point or another.

So Publix bought generators.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency put the spending above $100 million for 500-kilowatt units with 1,000-gallon diesel tanks, each sized to carry a store for three days or longer, and Progressive Grocer reported the full program was expected to reach $175 million.

Publix ordered 40 portable units, too, for stores that never got a permanent generator.

The run itself is the older tradition.

Many Floridians have been clearing Publix shelves of water and batteries since long before any of those generators arrived, and they still judge a storm the same way, by which store has the lights on two days after landfall.

4. Publix Cakes for Everything

Publix built its bakery late.

The company sold groceries for 27 years before it opened a bakery of its own, which is a long wait for a chain now famous for sheet cakes.

George Jenkins bought a bakery called Lundy’s in 1951 to keep bread and rolls moving to his stores on a schedule he controlled.

The first Publix Danish Bakery opened in 1957 at the Southgate Shopping Center in Lakeland.

It wasn’t a counter inside the supermarket.

It sat next door.

Shoppers finished at the register and walked back outside.

Then they stood in a second line for their bread.

Many Floridians order the same sheet cakes their parents ordered, and a decorator in the store still pipes the letters by hand.

5. Three Days Publix Locks Up

Publix closes for exactly three holidays a year, and the company says the list hasn’t changed since its founding: Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

Associates spend all three at home.

Many Floridians plan around those closings without thinking about it.

Christmas Eve turns into a scramble, since many stores lock the doors early that night and stay shut all the next day.

Ask anybody who forgot butter.

Other chains keep stretching their holiday hours later and later.

Publix keeps taking the same three days off, which means the last big grocery run before Christmas ends early in Tampa and Naples alike.

Publix Borrowed Its Own Name

Jenkins didn’t make up the word Publix.

He borrowed it from Publix Theatres, a national chain of roughly 1,200 movie theaters that kept its Florida headquarters in St. Petersburg.

Publix Theatres started in 1925 as an arm of Paramount, and it collapsed in the early 1930s.

Those theaters were the grandest buildings in town, with ushers and air conditioning years before houses had any.

The Florida Theatre in St. Petersburg was the first air-conditioned building on the Suncoast.

Jenkins kept the name anyway.

So the green letters on your store come from a chain of picture palaces that went broke while Publix was still a two-store operation in Winter Haven.

How Publix Picked Its Slogan

Publix ran under a stiffer line before 1954: Florida's Finest Food Store.

Bill Schroter, who started at Publix part time in 1938 and came back full time in 1949, thought that old line sounded like bragging.

He brought Jenkins a replacement in 1954: Where shopping is a pleasure.

Jenkins said, "Let's do it."

It hasn't changed since.

Publix has run those five words for 72 years, and it prints them across eight states now.

Many Floridians can finish the line before the cashier does.

Publix Leaders Started Bagging

Publix fills its biggest jobs from inside its own stores.

Kevin Murphy, who runs Publix now, started in 1984 as a front service clerk in Margate, the job title for the person who bags your order and walks it out to your car.

The man he replaced, Todd Jones, took that same job in New Smyrna Beach in 1980.

Nobody started at the top.

Forbes counted 58,000 associates formally registered for advancement in 2013, back when Publix was already promoting almost entirely from within.

Floridians who took that first job in high school recognize the pattern, since the produce manager stacking watermelons on Saturday probably started the same way.

Cashiers Who Own Publix

Publix set up its employee stock ownership plan in 1974, and the National Center for Employee Ownership now ranks it first among America's majority employee-owned companies.

The stock never trades on an exchange.

Only associates and board members can buy it, and associates qualify after they put in enough continuous service and hours.

The company reported $62.7 billion in sales for 2025, across 1,430 stores in eight states, with more than 260,000 associates on the payroll.

Those shares stay in-house.