Hinky Dinky was a supermarket

Supermarket

A supermarket, a form of grocery store, is a self-service store offering a wide variety of food and household merchandise, organized into departments...

 chain based in Omaha, Nebraska

Omaha, Nebraska

Omaha is the largest city in the state of Nebraska, United States, and is the county seat of Douglas County. It is located in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about 20 miles north of the mouth of the Platte River...

, that operated mainly in Nebraska

Nebraska

Nebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....

 and Iowa

Iowa

Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...

.

History

The Hinky Dinky grocery store chain was started by Jule, Henry and Albert Newman, brothers, and Ben Silver, a cousin, in Omaha in 1925. Another supermarket chain already existing was called Piggly Wiggly

Piggly Wiggly

Piggly Wiggly is a supermarket chain operating in the Midwestern and Southern regions of the United States, run by Piggly Wiggly, LLC, an affiliate of C&S Wholesale Grocers. The current company headquarters is in Keene, New Hampshire....

. Hoping to take advantage of the public's affection for a cute name (Piggly Wiggly was very successful) they came up with “Hinky-Dinky”, which was taken from the World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 song, “Hinky Dinky Parlay Voo” (see Mademoiselle from Armentières

Mademoiselle from Armentières

"Mademoiselle from Armentières" was a song that was sung during World War I. It is also known by its ersatz French line, Hinky Dinky Parley Voo . It was considered a sexy song, and when sung on the radio and TV, as in The Waltons, typically only the first verse was sung...

).

In 1972, Hinky Dinky was purchased by Cullum Companies of Dallas, which operated the Tom Thumb grocery chain. At its peak, Hinky Dinky operated approximately 50 stores. But Cullum was using profits from Hinky Dinky to support the operations of the Tom Thumb stores, and comparatively little reinvestment was made in the Hinky Dinky stores. A 1984 strike by unionized workers also hurt revenue. By the mid-1980s many Hinky Dinky stores had been sold or closed, leaving only a handful of stores in scattered locations. Ron Badley purchased the Hinky Dinky name and several stores from Cullum in 1985. In 2000 the remaining stores were sold to grocery distributor Nash Finch, which dropped the name on most of the stores.

Hinky Dinky was a pioneer in partnering with bank

Bank

A bank is a financial institution that serves as a financial intermediary. The term "bank" may refer to one of several related types of entities:...

s to open in-store banking offices.

External links

• Hinky Dinky.net - Hinky Dinky history
• hinkydinky-dsm.com - Hiinky Dinky - Des Moines - store reunion site