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Grocery stores got bad in most of the country the way a lot of things did, through illegal M&A.

They used to have HEB, Wegmans, etc quality stores in Seattle before some merger? What were they?

Why did this M&A seemingly not happen in Texas, New York, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio?

I've never lived in Seattle, but I know that Haggen was a casualty of The Safeway/Albertson's merger[1]; I can't speak to their quality.

Safeway and Albertsons had already bought up many grocery stores prior to that merger. When I was a kid, we knew which grocer had the best butcher and which had the best baker, and neither were chain stores.

1: Granted Haggen isn't entirely innocent here; they saw a potential growth opportunity and over-leveraged.

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