King Kullen opened the first modern supermarket in Queens, New York, in 1930. Michael J. Cullen established the store in a former garage in Glendale, combining self-service shopping, a broad product range, and low prices under one roof.
Cullen had previously worked for Kroger and A&P, where he developed ideas for a larger, more efficient grocery format. King Kullen promoted itself as the world’s first supermarket, using the slogan “The World’s Greatest Price Wrecker.” Its name came from a fictional giant in a popular comic strip of the period.
Earlier grocery stores often relied on clerks to retrieve goods from behind counters. The supermarket model let shoppers select products themselves, compare prices, and move through a larger sales floor. This format helped reshape food retailing during the twentieth century.
King Kullen is sometimes confused with older grocery chains because companies such as Piggly Wiggly pioneered self-service earlier. The distinction is that King Kullen combined self-service with supermarket scale and a wide assortment.