Heinen's was founded in 1929 in
Cleveland, Ohio, when Joe Heinen opened a small meat market on Kinsman Road (now called Chagrin Boulevard). After running the store for a few years, Joe opened his first supermarket across the street from the original butcher shop in 1933. On August 22, 2012, after two years of market and distribution logistics research, the company opened its first store outside the Greater Cleveland area in The Shops at Flint Creek in
Barrington, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. At that point, the chain served 18 communities in Ohio and Illinois. The Glenview location opened May 7, 2014. In early 2014, Heinen's also agreed to terms for new locations in
Lake Bluff and
Bannockburn, Illinois. In September 2013, it was announced that the company was in the final stages of negotiation with the Geis Companies for a 15-year lease on space in the
Ameritrust Tower and
Swetland Building at the corner of East 9th Street and Euclid Avenue in
downtown Cleveland. The company was reported to have had a long-standing interest in the downtown area and had come close to a deal for space in a major development on the east bank of the
Cuyahoga River just prior to the start of the
Great Recession. Company leadership, while acknowledging the risks associated with the deal, was hopeful that the population in the downtown area would continue its recent upward trend and further solidify the new store's customer base. This location, occupying the first two floors of the building and the first floor of the neighboring Swetland Building, opened on February 25, 2015. Heinen's has 24 stores, 19 in Ohio and five in Illinois. ==References==