Before Alpha Beta was the name of a store, it was the name of a marketing concept used in grocery stores founded by Albert and Hugh Gerrard. It referred to organizing the groceries in the store in alphabetical order. The Gerrards applied this idea to their flagship grocery store, Triangle Grocerteria, in 1915.
Then in 1917, they opened the first Alpha Beta store in Pomona, in eastern Los Angeles County, California. The company also launched a series of coffee shops named Alphy's (a knockoff of the more formal Alpha Beta name) with dozens around southern California. They were eventually sold; many became Denny's.
The company was bought by American Stores in 1961. Skaggs Drug Centers bought American Stores in 1979 and assumed the American Stores name. Combined food and drug stores in Alpha Beta territory were re-branded as Skaggs Alpha Beta. In 1984, American Stores bought The Jewel Companies, Inc., which had owned Osco Drug since 1961.
In 1984, all 34 Alpha Beta stores in Arizona were sold to ABCO Foods, and the stores continued operating under the Alpha Beta name. In Tucson, Alpha Beta-branded stores changed to ABCO-branded stores around 1989.