Cala Foods was a supermarket chain operating in San Francisco, California. Cala Foods was the sister chain to Bell Markets. The last Cala Foods store closed its doors on December 1, 2011.
History
Cala Foods was established in 1947 by the seven brothers of the Cala family. Cala Foods acquired the QFI supermarket chain in 1973. The company merged with Bell Markets in the mid-1970s. Bell Markets was founded in the 1940s when Dominick Bell and his two brothers opened a supermarket in San Francisco.
Cala Foods was the first supermarket chain in San Francisco to stay open 24 hours per day, and one of the first in the US to use checkout scanners.[1] The chain would eventually extend as far south as Santa Clara County and as far north as Marin County.[1]
The Cala Foods chain was purchased by the Yucaipa Companies in 1988.[1] In 1994, Cala became a division of the