Today, there are just a handful of locally owned grocery stores in Sonoma County — small chains like Oliver’s and Lola’s markets, as well as a few one-offs in select towns, such as the Petaluma Market and Big John’s in Healdsburg. Meanwhile, larger retail grocers like Safeway, Raley’s and Trader Joe’s continue to dominate. The scene looked quite different in years past, when the grocery store landscape was varied and plentiful.

In the 1800s, several family-owned grocery stores established themselves in the county, offering a range of products, from fresh local produce to feed for livestock.

In Sebastopol, there was the popular grocer Morris and Son, owned by the town’s founder, Joseph H. P. Morris, and his son, Harry, for nearly 30 years, starting in the 1870s. There was also the Rafael Brothers grocery store, founded by Joseph and Jess Rafael in 1895.

On Jan. 3, 1903, the Sebastopol Times called Rafael Bros. Grocery “one of the most solid and best conducted business enterprises in Sebastopol.”

Santa Rosa housed several long-running groceries in the early 1900s — one for every 200 residents and a dozen on Fourth Street alone by 1905, according to former Press Democrat reporter and county historian Gaye LeBaron.

A page in the June 3, 1904, Santa Rosa Republican listed several Fourth Street market advertisements, including Bertolani Bros. groceries and feed; the New York Pork Store for meats and picnic supplies; and King’s Grocery for specials on maraschino cherries, Dutch herring and elastic starch (a laundry product). The page also noted that a Mrs. Bradley was serving delicious cocoa at Kopf & Donovan’s grocery store.

A Nov. 30, 1904, ad in the Santa Rosa Republican noted some of the specials at Kopf & Donovan’s included mince meat, Franquette walnuts, imported cheese and old wines. Owner Ney Donovan retired in 1927 and transferred his accounts to the new Piggly Wiggly, the first American supermarket chain, on Hinton Avenue.

Other state and national store chains began popping up in the county, including the Bay Area-based Purity grocery stores, Skaggs’ Grocery (a predecessor to Safeway), Alpha Beta, and Albertson’s. Still, several independent local grocers managed to hold their own for quite a while against encroaching grocery giants. Among them were Paul’s Market in Graton, Fleming’s Market in Sebastopol, La Rose Market in Santa Rosa and Mallott’s Grocery in Petaluma.

The success of local grocers extended to just a couple of decades ago, when longtime residents may still remember Traverso’s — the last of Santa Rosa’s historic Italian markets — and G&G Supermarkets, a landmark Sonoma County grocery for over half a century, operated by the Gong and Lowe family.

Traverso’s, founded by Pietro Carlo “Charlie” Traverso, was a Santa Rosa institution from the 1930s until its closing in 2011. G&G Supermarket was founded in 1963 by Robert Gong and his father-in-law, Gee Kai Gong, initially in Santa Rosa and later in Petaluma in 2000. Safeway bought the G&G stores, which closed in 2016.

While supermarket chains have edged out the majority of locally owned grocery stores due to the erosion of antitrust laws, some remain. The ones still here include Gonnella’s in Occidental, Pacific Market in Sebastopol and Santa Rosa, and Garnero’s Dry Creek Grocery (now known as Dry Creek General Store) in Healdsburg.