Saturday at Grandways: Hull's Red-and-Yellow Supermarket

If you grew up in Hull, two colours do a lot of heavy lifting in your memory: red and yellow. That striped awning. That cursive logo. And that daft little pencil fella in a bowler hat giving it the thumbs up. Grandways. Of course it was Grandways.

That’s the Princes Avenue branch up there, snapped in April 1990 — and if you’re a certain age, you can probably still smell the place.

A proper Hull firm

Grandways wasn’t some faceless national chain. It was grown right here, by William Jackson & Son, the Hull food firm whose roots go all the way back to the 1800s. Jackson’s took on the Grandways name and ran with it, rebranding its bigger stores as Grandways and building a chain across Yorkshire and into North Lincolnshire.

So every time you pushed a wonky trolley round Grandways, you were shopping at a bit of Hull history — a local family firm that had quietly become part of everyone’s week.

So what happened to it?

The early 90s is where the trail goes cold. In 1991, Jackson’s decided to put its energy into a new convenience-store format — the Jacksons shops a lot of us still remember — and started selling the Grandways supermarkets off. Around 24 stores went to the Argyll Group (which folded them into Presto) and to Kwik Save across 1992 and 1993. The red-and-yellow signs came down, and just like that, Grandways slipped into Hull folklore.

(The Jacksons convenience name, by the way, eventually ended up under Sainsbury’s — but that’s a story for another tee.)

Why we brought it back

Because some things are too good to let disappear. The Grandways logo is pure, unfiltered Hull nostalgia — the mascot, the stripes, the lot — so we put it where it belongs: on the front of a proper heavyweight tee and a soft fleece-lined hoodie.

Wear the Grandways tee → · Grandways hoodie →

Grandways FAQs

When did Grandways close down?

The chain was broken up in the early 1990s. In 1991 William Jackson & Son refocused on its Jacksons convenience stores and sold the Grandways supermarkets to the Argyll Group (Presto) and Kwik Save over 1992–93.

Who owned Grandways?

Grandways was run by William Jackson & Son, the long-established Hull food company — making it a genuinely local chain, mainly across Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire.

Where was the Grandways on Princes Avenue?

Right on Princes Avenue in Hull — pictured here in April 1990. For a lot of Avenues residents it was the go-to weekly shop.

Can I get a Grandways t-shirt?

You can. Our Grandways print comes on men’s and women’s tees and a hoodie, in a range of colours.