Jacob Musser can’t get enough Giant Food. And he’s not alone. After last week’s column on the Super Giant stores that once offered Washington-area shoppers a supermarket/department store hybrid, many readers shared their Giant memories with Answer Man.
“I managed to obtain an original Giant shopping cart from the ’90s, when Giant had their brand Super G,” Jacob said.
Super G — not to be confused with Super Giant — was the chain’s own brand.
Jacob is 21, young for someone infused with such nostalgia. He has fond feelings for Giant not just because he works at one — in the seafood department of the Dumfries Road store — but because it’s where his grandmother would take him shopping beginning when he was 6 years old. An aunt worked at another store for more than three decades.
“I’m very inspired by the employees who worked for 20, 30, 40 or 50 years,” he said. Jacob even started a Facebook group — “Fans of the Big G (Giant Food)” — where employees and others can share their memories.
Tim Joliet worked at the Rockville Super Giant — Store 69 — from 1973 to 1976. In 1973, he was fresh back from Vietnam. He’d hoped to be hired on the grocery side — it paid better — but wound up on the department store side.
“I ended up working in the Domestics department,” wrote Tim, of Greenbackville, Va. “Stationery, records, books, sewing, sheets, pillows, pull shades and more. The best thing that ever happened to me. The employees were the nicest people I had ever met.”
There was one employee in particular who was particularly nice: a summer hire named Leslie Gunn.
The couple dated through 1976, when Leslie graduated from Frostburg and Tim from the University of Maryland.
“We married that November and spent the next 45 years together,” Tim wrote. “Leslie passed away on Christmas Eve 2021 from a very rare brain infection. My best friend. When people asked where we met, I’d often say ‘between the sheets’ at Giant Food.”
Like many employees of that era, Tim remembers the big boss: Izzy Cohen.
“He often came to the store with a small entourage on Friday evenings,” Tim wrote. “He could remember most of our names.”
One evening — after they’d finished restocking and cleaning — a couple employees stood in an aisle in conversation. Izzy asked why they were standing there talking. Tim explained that they had finished their work.
Izzy responded: “If you don’t have anything to do, don’t do it in the main aisle where customers can see you. They’ll think I’m wasting money on too many employees.”
It’s possible that Tim sold Mike Marmer the Sanyo AM/FM radio with 8-track player that Mike bought in 1975 for his Ford Maverick. Mike got it at the Rockville Super Giant.
It retailed for around $140. “I believe Super Giant had it for 100 and I had 10 dollars in Super Giant Bucks,” wrote Mike, of Germantown.
Mike wasn’t sure whether to get the cassette-tape version of the unit or the 8-track version. A friend had the 8-track, so that’s what he got. His first three 8-tracks were “Chicago VIII” by Chicago, “Eldorado” by ELO and “Blue Jays” by John Lodge and Justin Haywood of the Moody Blues.
The car is long gone, but Mike still has the instruction booklet.
Carolin Ringwall of Oakton still has her Giant account card, which was also good at the Pants Corral, the slacks emporium that was once part of the Giant empire.
Waldorf’s Holly Rexrode grew up with Super Giant and its diverse array of merchandise.
“We went to the Giant in District Heights all the time,” she wrote. “Yes, on the corner was a makeup counter with a clerk there to help you, hoses, gardening, records, toys, clothes (okay, I bought a purple hat because Donny Osmond wore them), hardware …. And the food aisles were a mile long.”
That Super Giant store was the first place Holly ever laid eyes on something that would become common: automatic doors.
Questions, please
Do you have questions about the Washington area? Send them to answerman@washpost.com.