Since 1933, Haggen has cemented itself in Bellingham history as a grocery store that served the area through the Great Depression, and then became a Pacific Northwest chain. Its distinctions include operating through three generations of a local family, becoming the first company to include an in-store Starbucks, and getting ahead of several late-twentieth century trends in supermarkets.
Today, Albertsons operates all stores in the Haggen division, and recent news reports detail a merger with Kroger that will change ownership again but will not close stores. Regardless of how the grocery ownership games pan out, Haggen’s history will always be rooted deeply here at home.
Early History
Haggen is historically notable for surviving, even thriving, through the nadir of the Great Depression. The store cornered an underdeveloped market at a time when Whatcom County residents needed affordable groceries.
Dorothy Haggen, her husband Bennett Haggen, and her brother Doug Clark used $1,100 in stock savings to start the Economy Food Store at Bellingham’s 1314 Bay Street. After some years of success, they relocated and rebranded as White House Market on Railroad and Magnolia Streets with the slogan, “You may never be president but someday we’ll see you in the White House.”
The Haggen name would emerge after World War II as White House Market introduced its in-store bakery, a popular draw for locals, in 1941. By 1947, the Haggens built the Town and Country Shopping Center at 2814 Meridian Street — where they replaced White House Market with Haggen’s Thriftway in 1957. This store became the flagship Haggen still operating onsite today.
By this point, the family officially rebranded the company as Haggen Inc. and started expanding toward locations outside Bellingham.
Through the 1960s and ’70s, the Haggen family passed the management onto their sons Donald and Rick Haggen. The family had opened new stores in Everett, in 1962, and Lynnwood, in 1968; the brothers joined the business in 1971 to add two Lynnwood stores. By 1977, the brothers had expanded Haggen to seven stores in Washington.
Toward a Modern Chain Grocery
Haggen initially added branches gradually by building stores from the ground up rather than acquiring them, typically in underserved areas with high demand. Bellingham’s Haggen on Meridian expanded to 44,220 square feet in 1979, becoming a superstore ahead of the curve of other supermarkets in the ensuing decades.
The grocery was also ahead of the curve as a service-oriented supermarket by the 1970s. Haggen stores featured pharmacies, delis with catering services, flower shop departments, wine departments, and seafood aisles displaying fish on ice. These trends, the stores’ merchandising, and its period of operating 24 hours a day (until 2010) helped set it apart from large-scale competition and helped set a standard other supermarkets would follow nationwide.
In 1982, the brothers launched another division called TOP Foods (later TOP Food and Drug) — using “TOP” as an acronym for “Tough on Prices.” Snohomish and Wenatchee hosted massive warehouses with the first two of these stores, which expanded to Everett in 1984 with the Northwest region’s then-largest supermarket (at 71,000 square feet). By 1994, TOP Food and Drug had 11 locations in Washington.
Haggen first expanded outside Washington with its Portland store in 1995. In 1989, Bellingham’s Haggen on Meridian became the first grocery in the U.S. to host an in-store Starbucks (founded in Seattle in 1971). By 2000, Haggen had established its web presence to compete with companies such as Kirkland, which first allowed customers to order groceries online. Jeff Haggen, son of Don Haggen, had taken over by then.
Haggen would establish its other Bellingham locations several decades after its earliest expansions. Stores at Barkley Village and Sehome Village Shopping Center spurred the growth of these two urban villages into the 1990s. Starting life as Hayden’s Thriftway Market in 1956, today’s Fairhaven location became Red Apple Market in the 1990s and took the Haggen name in 2016, after the latter brand’s acquisition by Albertsons.
“Northwest Fresh” Today
Albertsons acquired Haggen Food and Pharmacy in 2015 after the group filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Haggen had historically avoided expanding into Seattle for the potential competition with Albertsons, QFC, Safeway, and others. In 2014, Haggen had ceased operating TOP Food and Drug and rebranded 146 former Albertsons, Safeway, Pavilions, and Vons stores in Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, and Nevada. Of Haggen’s 29 main stores under the management of Albertsons today and about to be merged with Kroger, 15 currently still carry the Haggen name and “Northwest Fresh” branding.
Early generations of the Haggen family in Bellingham are remembered by their shared monuments at Bayview Cemetery. Donald E. Haggen’s monument reads, “The respected leader of Haggen/Top Food & Drug Supermarkets / A dedicated community service volunteer.”
As store programs such as Community Giving have stayed local in support of nonprofit organizations, Haggen remembers its roots in Bellingham.
