Popular culture goes on sale every day at Bloomingdale's. It runs about 40 upscale stores in a dozen states, including California, Florida, Illinois, and New York. The company's flagship store at 59th and Lexington is a Manhattan institution and tourist attraction in its own right. A smaller Manhattan store opened in downtown's SoHo neighborhood in 2004. In 2010 Bloomies opened its first store outside the US: a 200,000-square-foot outlet in Dubai. Founded in 1872 by brothers Lyman and Joseph Bloomingdale, the store rode the popularity of the hoop skirt to sales success and practically invented the department store concept at the start of the 20th Century. Bloomingdale's is a division of Macy's, Inc.

Dean & DeLuca also offers its goods through consumer and corporate gift catalogs, as well as online. It has operated in Japan since 2003 through a distribution agreement with ITOCHU there. Joel Dean and Giorgio DeLuca opened their first market in SoHo in 1977.You could go to Manhattan's tony SoHo neighborhood for a taste of Dean & DeLuca, but increasingly, you don't have to. The purveyor of pricey gourmet foods, fine wines, cheeses, baked goods, coffees and teas, and high-end kitchenware operates about 15 specialty markets and cafes in select US cities and is growing rapidly in Japan. The company opened its first cafe in the Middle East, located in Dubai, in 2008 and now has a store in Kuwait.

Operating in the Pacific Northwest since the 1950s, the company was acquired by W. W. Monroe in 1974. Through more than 20 locations in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington, Thermal Supply has built a business distributing air-conditioning, heating, and refrigeration equipment, parts, and accessories. The company, which grew from a mere three locations over the years, specializes in supplying products from Copeland, Larkin, Manitowoc, Mitsubishi, Sporlan, and other manufacturers.

Mar-Cone Appliance Parts Center was founded in 1932 by Harry Markow as a door-to-door rebuilt vacuum cleaner company. CEO Mitchell Markow is the founder's grandson. Marcone Appliance Parts Center helps keep your refrigerator, dishwasher, and air conditioner running. Mar-Cone Appliance Parts Center distributes appliance repair parts; it also sells HVAC and plumbing supplies. Marcone operates through more than 40 locations in the US, mostly in California and Florida. Mar-Cone Appliance Parts Center provides parts from vendors such as KitchenAid, Whirlpool, and Maytag. It also exports parts to clients in about 120 countries around the globe. Marcone has been growing through acquisitions while consolidating business operations.

In 1923 Frank McCoy founded a roofing company, which his son, Emmett, combined with McCoy Supply to form the McCoy Corporation. Today the firm is still family owned and led by CEO Brian McCoy, Emmett's son. Even though it's battling home-improvement giants The Home Depot and Lowe's, McCoy still has time for a day off. The company owns and operates about 80 McCoy's Building Supply Centers, which are concentrated primarily in Texas but also in Arkansas, Mississippi, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. In keeping with its Texas roots, McCoy's also stocks farm and ranch products, and it runs two millwork facilities. The retailer adheres to a steadfast tradition of closing stores on Sundays.

Fred Meyer Stores went out for groceries and wound up in Kroger's cart. Freddy's -- as the chain is known -- is a supercenter pioneer providing food and general merchandise to cost-conscious consumers in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. One of the largest supercenter operators in the US (along with Wal-Mart and Costco Wholesale), Fred Meyer's more than 125 multidepartment stores (averaging 155,000 sq. ft.) offer everything from apparel and home goods to groceries, consumer electronics, fuel, and jewelry. Its Web store delivers to the Alaska Bush. Kroger has leveraged Fred Meyer's general merchandising expertise as defense against Wal-Mart, which has overtaken Kroger as the #1 seller of groceries in the US.

Young Supply, founded in 1935, is owned and run by the Vallan family. Young Supply is an old hand in the HVAC-supply business. The company has more than 15 locations in Michigan and Ohio that sell air-conditioning, ventilation, food-service, heating, and refrigeration equipment and components. Brands include Friedrich, Honeywell, Johnson Controls, and many others. Young also sells tools and measurement instruments along with controls and motors. Visitors to the company Web site can check inventory, apply for credit, and use the company's interactive area, energy to work, length, mass, and pressure HVAC conversion tables.

Carrefour Polksa is the Polish arm of the French retail giant Carrefour SA. Carrefour Polksa has about 350 stores, only about 75 of which are the large hypermarkets its French parent company is best known for. The other stores in Poland are smaller supermarkets under the name Carrefour Express, convenience stores under the brand 5 minut, and gas stations. Carrefour Polksa opened its first store in Lodz in 1997. In 2007 it bought 183 Albert supermarkets, 15 Hypernova hypermarkets, and four gas stations from Royal Ahold. The next year the company introduced mobile phone service, called Carrefour Mova.

Quality Food Centers stores offer more than just groceries: Seattle's Best Coffee and Cinnabon serve up goodies at some locations, and many stores offer services such as catering, video rental, in-store banking, pharmacies, floral departments, and film developing. With Kroger's acquisition of QFC's one-time parent, Fred Meyer, in 1999, QFC became a division of one of the nation's largest grocers.If you're sleepless -- and hungry -- in Seattle, consider Quality Food Centers (QFC). The grocery chain operates about 75 stores (most open 24 hours), primarily in the Puget Sound region of Washington (including Seattle), but also including about a half a dozen supermarkets in Portland, Oregon.

ASDA is the UK's second-largest food seller (behind Tesco).It operates about 370 stores (including about 25 ASDA Living stores) that primarily sell groceries and apparel.The stores also sell CDs, books, videos, and housewares. It offers American, Chinese, and Mexican take-away meals.Since being bought by Wal-Mart in 1999, ASDA has set off a price war in the UK by initiating Wal-Mart's aggressive "price-rollback" program and converting stores to Wal-Mart's supercenter format under the ASDA-Wal-Mart banner.ASDA.com sells goods online.

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