Publix Got Its Name From a Chain of Movie Theaters, and 5 More Publix Things Floridians Never Learned About

You’ve probably walked into Publix more times than you can count.

That rush of cool air at the door has a backstory, and it goes back further than you’d guess.

Here’s how a Depression-era start grew into the Publix Floridians know today.

1. Piggly Wiggly Years

Before Publix existed, its founder George Jenkins worked for another grocery chain called Piggly Wiggly.

Grocery work wasn’t new to him, since Progressive Grocer says he worked in his father’s general store from an early age.

His father gave up the country store in 1923 and moved to Atlanta to run a grocery market, Supermarket News says.

Driving a taxi, hauling lumber and selling shoes were among his early jobs.

Publix says he headed to Tampa in 1925 at age 17, hoping to get rich in Florida’s real estate boom.

Instead, he took a job as a stock clerk in a Piggly Wiggly grocery store.

After a couple of months, he was promoted to manager.

Within eight months, Progressive Grocer reports, he had increased the store’s gross fivefold.

He later managed the Piggly Wiggly in Winter Haven from 1926 to 1930.

In 1930, he resigned from Piggly Wiggly to open a grocery store.

If you shop at Publix today, you’re buying groceries from a company started by a former Piggly Wiggly manager.

2. Publix Theatres Chain

Publix took its name from a chain of movie theaters, according to a historical marker in Winter Haven.

The chain was Publix Theatres, which operated at least 19 movie houses in Florida in the 1920s and early 1930s.

Florida Memory says the chain was founded in New York City in 1925, so it wasn’t a Florida company to begin with.

By 1929, it was the most powerful theater company in the country, with 1,200 locations including theaters in New York City and Chicago.

Its Florida headquarters was in St. Petersburg.

Many Florida theaters were closing by 1930 as Great Depression revenues fell, and the theater company went into receivership in 1933, the Post and Courier reported.

Florida Memory says Jenkins explained the name in a speech that was later published as The Publix Story.

Jenkins liked the sound of the name.

It stuck.

Every time you say you’re stopping at Publix, you’re borrowing a name from a movie theater company.

3. Start-Up Money

The Publix you shop at today started in 1930, in the middle of the Great Depression.

The Piggly Wiggly chain where Jenkins worked was sold to an Atlanta operator as the Depression set in, according to Supermarket News.

Jenkins quit his job and opened a 1,700-square-foot store right next door.

If you’re wondering what it cost him, he borrowed $2,000.

Within a year, Publix had put his former employer’s store out of business.

4. Winter Haven Store

Publix’s history page says the company opened its first store in Winter Haven on Sept. 6, 1930.

If you only know the chain as Publix Super Markets, the first store was called Publix Food Store.

Publix’s first motto was “Florida’s finest food stores.”

Jenkins was determined to run a better store than anyone else, according to the company’s story about its slogan.

The marker gives Jenkins’s birth date as Sept. 29, 1907, which made him 22 when the store opened and 23 later that month.

If you want to find the spot, ClickOrlando places the store at 58 4th Street Northwest.

5. Employee Shares

Publix was set up with 30 shares of stock at $100 a share, Progressive Grocer reports.

Jenkins believed in profit sharing and employee ownership from the start.

Six store workers couldn't afford to buy stock on salaries of $15 a week.

Jenkins's fix was to tell them they were getting a $2 weekly raise.

Then he sold each of them one share for $100 and withheld the raise money to pay for it.

If you earned $15 a week, a $100 share cost more than six weeks of pay.

If you're wondering how long the withheld raise took to pay off a share, at $2 a week the math comes out to 50 weeks.

6. Food Palace

Publix says it opened its first Publix Super Market on Nov. 8, 1940.

Jenkins opened a second store by 1935, on the other side of the downtown business district, Progressive Grocer reports.

He closed both stores to open a food palace of marble, glass and stucco.

Supermarket News reported in 2008 that he mortgaged an orange grove he owned in 1940.

The store's innovations included air conditioning, fluorescent lighting, electric eye doors and terrazzo floors.

If you've ever ducked into a Publix to escape July heat, you've felt the first item on that 1940 list.

Progressive Grocer adds that the store had amenities never seen before in a grocery store in the state, including frozen food cases, piped-in music and eight-foot-wide aisles.

The Historical Marker

Publix says people gathered on Sept. 6, 2018, the company's 88th anniversary, to celebrate the marker at the first store.

ClickOrlando reported in 2024 that the day marked the building's designation as a historical site.

The marker's listing puts it on Fourth Street Northwest, a tenth of a mile north of West Central Avenue.