Giant Food to Celebrate 77th Anniversary Wednesday with Free Birthday Cake

Help Giant Food celebrate 77 years as a DC-area grocer Wednesday by stopping by its Giant Food store at 7137 Columbia Pike or 6980 Braddock Road in Annandale for a slice of birthday cake. The store will be celebrating with free cake from 3-8 p.m. Giant will serve cake at all of its stores and all customers are welcome to stop by for free cake, according to a news release.

The store chain got its start in 1936 when N.M. Cohen and Samuel Lehrman teamed up to open the first supermarket at Georgia Avenue and Park Road in Washington, DC. Today, Giant serves communities at 170 stores in Virginia, Washington, D.C., Maryland and Delaware.

Some other important dates in the company's history include:

• 1941: Giant's Northern Virginia store was opened in 1941 in Arlington.
• 1950s: Giant added automatic doors, mechanized checkouts, and open display cases for meat and frozen foods.
• 1979: Giant became the first supermarket chain to put computer-assisted checkout scanning equipment into use chain wide.
• 1982: Gourmet food store, Someplace Special opens in Mclean, Va. Richmond stores closed.
• 2000: BonusCard program launched; Peapod by Giant begins home delivery service via internet ordering; Introduction of new consumer information program - Healthy Ideas.
• 2005: Giant/Stop & Shop and their customers contribute more than $3 million to the American Red Cross and America's Second Harvest to assist tsunami victims. Giant launches Triple Winner program, which raises $1 million for the Children's Cancer Foundation.

To find the Giant store nearest you, visit the Giant Food store locator.

Where do you shop for groceries? What do you like most about your grocery store? Tell us in the comments!

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