Stater Bros.

Stater Bros. Markets is a privately held supermarket chain, based in San Bernardino, California, with 171 stores in Southern California. It was founded in Yucaipa, California, on August 17, 1936, by twin brothers Cleo and Leo Stater when they purchased the market owned by Cleo's boss, W. A. Davis, with a $600 down payment ($13,921 in 2025 dollars). Cleo recalled to the Inland Empire Business Press in 1998, that the owner of the market across the street from Davis' gave him the other $300 to make the full down payment. Stater Bros. went public in 1964; Cleo, Leo, and their brother Lavoy sold their interests to the now-defunct Long Beach–based Petrolane Gas Service in 1968. The chain has been owned fully by Stater Bros. Holdings, a subsidiary of La Cadena Investments, owned by Stater's late chairman, president and CEO, Jack H. Brown, since 1986. In 1999, Stater bought 43 plus one future Albertsons and Lucky supermarkets during Albertsons' merger with American Stores. This acquisition expanded Stater into new areas, including the Antelope Valley and San Diego County. It entered the Fortune 500 for the first time in 2006 at #493, the first notable Inland Empire–based company to do so. In 2006, the headquarters began construction of a 2,000,000-square-foot (190,000 m2) facility at San Bernardino International Airport (formerly Norton Air Force Base) from its former location on the Colton–Grand Terrace border. In 2018, Stater sold its SuperRX pharmacy division to CVS.