King Kullen history

By the time he died in 1936 there were 17 King Kullen stores doing a combined total of $6 million worth of business per year.

The company went public in 1961, offering shares over the counter, but the Cullen family reserved enough stock for itself to retain a controlling interest.

King Kullen was operating 41 stores on Long Island (including the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens) in 1962, all of them leased premises, and had 971 employees.

In 1966 King Kullen acquired the nine-store Blue Jay chain in Suffolk County, Long Island, for $1.3 million in cash.

During fiscal 1975 sales grew to $192.2 million and net income to $2.7 million.

By the end of fiscal 1978 King Kullen leased 49 retail outlets, ranging from 10,000 to 30,000 square feet in size, and a 33,000-square-foot produce warehouse in Jamaica, a Queens neighborhood.

In addition to food items, King Kullen was selling a variety of housewares and health and beauty aids, amounting to 4.5 percent of sales volume in fiscal 1981.

By the end of fiscal 1983 King Kullen owned, rather than leased, the trucks it used to distribute grocery and meat items to its 55 stores, which ranged in size between 10,000 and 44,000 square feet.

By the end of fiscal 1990 John B. Cullen had become chairman and chief executive officer of King Kullen.

In January 1991 King Kullen announced a diversification program, with the authorization of five new businesses, in addition to a real estate firm already disclosed.

King Kullen opened its second store on Staten Island and its largest store to date, 53,000 square feet, in November 1992.

In 1995 the company added Wild by Nature, a new division, at the initiative of Dana Conklin, daughter of the chairman of the board.

By 2018, the company’s stores are spread over on Long Island, in Suffolk Counties and Nassau.