Piggly Wiggly
People outside the South like to make fun of the store name Piggly Wiggly. Piggly Wiggly is found all over the South except in Metro Atlanta. Most of the Atlanta stores are long gone. Piggly Wiggly stores aren’t the biggest grocery stores in the country or even the cheapest, but they cultivated a following by being unabashedly, intentionally local. For those living near the coast of South Carolina and Georgia—the so-called “Lowcountry”—Piggly Wiggly was one of the only places to consistently find such regional favorites as Duke’s mayonnaise, “dirty-rice,” smooth grits, and smoky neck bones. Piggly Wiggly was local before it was fashionable to be local. People who have Piggly Wigglys near them are very loyal. Last fall, Piggly Wiggly announced a deal to sell about half of its stores to bigger rivals. Twitter and Facebook were lit up with comments. Why, there is a state Historical Marker for the site of the first Piggly Wiggly opened in Memphis...