Kmart's Failed '80s Warehouse Chain Came With A Unique Food Court

In the late 1980s, the discount retail chain Kmart reinvented itself with a bold experiment called American Fare — an upscale grocery store on steroids. One of its most popular attractions was a food court. You could grab a beloved Mexican pizza from Taco Bell and polish it off with TCBY's white chocolate mousse frozen yogurt — all while grocery shopping. There was a Kentucky Fried Chicken, too. What a time to be alive — with two of America's most popular fast food selections nestled inside a giant grocery store, serving you beef tacos and fried chicken, all while allowing you to shop for ingredients to make your own beef tacos and fried chicken.

Perhaps you wanted to buy some plants and a new washing machine while grocery shopping, too. You could do it all at American Fare. It was modeled after European warehouse-style grocery stores called hypermarkets — like Carrefour and Auchan — that blended a full supermarket with big box-style sections that felt more like Lowe's or Home Depot. 

For American Fare, Kmart partnered with a prominent Alabama-based supermarket chain called Bruno's that operated hundreds of grocery stores, including the small grocery store all Southerners love: Piggly Wiggly. The first American Fare was gigantic in comparison. At 244,000 square feet, it was much bigger than your average Walmart Supercenter of today. The mall part included a bank, a hair salon, a pharmacy, a greeting card store, and a mixed media spot for music and videos. And along with its popular food court, it featured another quick-service food option.

American Fare boasted a giant retail bakery, too, turning out made-from-scratch goods like donuts and cupcakes. According to Kmart World, it was dubbed the "largest retail scratch bakery in the US" at the time. With more than 80 registers to handle crowds and thousands of parking spaces outside, you could plan an entire day at American Fare. After the first American Fare opened in Stone Mountain, Georgia, in 1989, two more followed by 1990 — one in Charlotte, North Carolina, and another in Jackson, Mississippi. 

American Fare's mall-like charm and bustling food court wasn't the first of its kind, though. By the mid-80s, many grocers began partnering with food-service operators, and it wasn't unusual to find a Dairy Queen at a Dierbergs in St. Louis or a Panda Express inside a Von's in California. Kmart wasn't the only retail giant testing the hypermarket waters, either. Walmart had Hypermart USA in partnership with Tom Thumb, with locations in Texas, Kansas, and Missouri, while regional grocery giant Meijer had already been operating its hypermarket concept successfully in the Midwest for years. 

Where Meijer found staying power, American Fare fizzled. By 1992, Bruno's pulled out of the partnership. Kmart was also launching its Super Kmart chain at the time, and by 1994, all three American Fare stores shuttered. Though short-lived, it's a retail concept that continues on. American Fare walked so that every Costco food court item could run.