Stater Bros.

Stater Bros. Markets is a privately held supermarket chain, based in San Bernardino, California, consisting of 171 stores located throughout Southern California. It was founded in Yucaipa, California, on August 17, 1936, by twin brothers Cleo and Leo Stater when they purchased the market owned by Cleo's boss, W. A. Davis, with a $600 down payment ($12,653 in 2022 dollars). Cleo recalled to the Inland Empire Business Press in 1998, that the owner of the market across the street from Davis's gave him the other $300 to make the full down payment. Stater Bros. went public in 1964; Cleo, Leo, and their brother Lavoy sold their interests to the now-defunct Long Beach–based Petrolane Gas Service in 1968. The chain has been owned fully by Stater Bros. Holdings, a subsidiary of La Cadena Investments, owned by Stater's late chairman, president and CEO, Jack H. Brown, since 1986.^[