The CHANDLER & RUDD CO., specializing in fine foods and delicacies, has for many years been one of Cleveland's most distinctive grocery stores. The firm started as a grocery store in 1864 as the Jones-Potter Co. Wm. Rudd, one of the first employees, and Geo. Chandler bought out the original owners 4 years later and changed the name of the store, which was on the south side of PUBLIC SQUARE, to the Chandler & Rudd Co. Chandler & Rudd concentrated on imported delicacies but also carried a conventional line of groceries. Later it added its own line of baked goods and candies. In 1888 the company incorporated and moved into a larger store on Euclid Ave., as well as an uptown branch at Euclid and E. 55th St. Chandler left the business in 1894 because of a dispute over the store's selling of liquor, leaving Rudd and his brother George in charge. Chandler & Rudd was the first grocery store in Cleveland to make extensive use of newspaper advertising. In 1910 it was one of the first grocery concerns in the nation to inaugurate a telephone ordering system. In the midst of the Depression the company undertook an expansion program, and by 1934 it had established 9 branch stores in neighborhood shopping centers. As the downtown store's business declined, in 1958 it moved into a smaller store on PLAYHOUSE SQUARE, which was closed completely in 1960. Chandler & Rudd moved its headquarters to its SHAKER HTS. store at 20128 Chagrin Blvd., which had opened in 1952. In 1960, Fred Marino bought the remaining Shaker Heights store from the Rudd family and relocated it to 20314 Chagrin Blvd. ca. 1982. In 2009, Chandler & Rudd ceased operations. In 2012, Chandler & Rudd owner, Fred Marino, re-opened the business as an online gourmet gift basket business in the Produce Packaging, Inc. warehouse on 7501 Carnegie Ave.
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