Smart & Final Stores, Inc. is a chain of warehouse-style stores. It is one of the longest continuously operated food and supply retailers in the US.

In the year 1871, Los Angeles was a very different city than it is today. It used to be a small and dusty town. The buildings were made of adobe or wood. The streets were unpaved and the people were outnumbered by farm animals. In those days, Herman Hellman, Jacob Haas, Bernard Cohn decided to come together to start a grocery business. They called their store Hellman-Haas Grocery Co. and started selling daily needs such as flour, brown sugar, salt, medicine, and tobacco,, etc. The idea of prepackaged items wasn’t widespread yet, so they were selling their products by weight. They used to place fruits or rice in casks and barrels in order to display them. Soon after, they started offering canned tomatoes and emphasized the quality of their contents by packaging.

In the following decades, they became the most prominent wholesale grocer in the city. Meanwhile, Los Angeles’ population grew rapidly and reached almost 1 million due to the construction of the L.A. Aqueduct, the discovery of oil in Long Beach and the opening of the Panama Canal. So, Haas Wholesale Grocers was founded in San Francisco and it became the leading wholesaler in the Bay Area. In the meantime, there was another store which was supplying feed and grain to local farmers. Jim Smart bought this store then partnered with Hildane Final. They changed the company’s name to Smart & Final Wholesale Grocers.

This was a period when grocery retailers finally started to negotiate discounts with manufacturers, avoiding wholesalers altogether. This competitive atmosphere caused the bankruptcy of many stores. However, Smart & Final managed to survive by pioneering the "cash and carry" concept in Los Angeles. Before they implemented this new concept, a clerk had to collect goods for the customers.

In 1953, Smart & Final merged with Haas, Baruch & Co., but kept the Smart & Final name. Shortly thereafter, the company was acquired by a leading grocery chain and expanded to 83 stores.

Later, Casino USA acquired the company in 1988 and used the company's resources for modernization of Smart & Final stores. Thanks to this strategy, the company doubled its sales to more than $558 million.

In 1993, the company opened stores in Mexico for the first time.

In May 2007, Smart & Final was acquired by a private equity firm. The following year, Smart & Final introduced Smart & Final Extra! stores. They were large format stores with wider merchandise selection.

In 2014, Smart & Final started to publicly offer its shares and opened its 200th store in Long Beach, California.

The following year, it celebrated the opening of its 100th Extra! banner store. Also, it acquired 33 other stores and reopened them as Smart & Final Extra! stores.

Smart & Final has amazing growth program. It constantly keeps opening new stores in new cities and always manages to meet customers needs by paying attention to their demands. Today, Smart & Final is an iconic household name. It is headquartered in Los Angeles and it has more than 300 stores under the “Smart & Final,” “Smart & Final Extra!” and “Smart Foodservice Warehouse Stores” banners.