During high school and a few summers while in college (so...1968 - 1972) I worked at the local Winn-Dixie.
I assume it was like this Market Basket in that it was owned by a family (the Davis brothers ) but it was A.D. Davis that was president/CEO/Head Honcho who called the shots and created the customer/employee loyalty.
They were non-Union and determined to stay that way. They always made sure that we baggers/stockers got one nickel more per hour than the boys at Kroger etc.
The Cesar Chavez picketers got tired and gave up trying to "recruit" us.
After AD retired and the worthless kids took over, it was never the same.
All that being said, since grocery store were my first vocation, I have kept a dilettante's interest in them and gauged all the ones I ever shopped. (A&P, H.E.B, Kroger, Albertson's, Safeway, Piggly Wiggly, Harris Teeter and others) But I have never seen a store as bright, clean, organized etc. as the Publix stores that have gone up in the Atlanta area in the last 15 years.
By far the best I have seen.
I'll have to take your word for it...but color me a skeptic.
The Publix I have been to have been clean and bright.
But Market Basket is a combination of just that early Winn-Dixie family environment you describe: employees get paid more with more opportunity to advance, yet prices are better than elsewhere. No unionization and a sense of ownership among the employees. Yet, Market Basket is also close to a Whole Foods/regular supermarket hybrid with the level of its fresh produce, baking, specialty foods, etc.—while also beating regular supermarkets on price.
“Bad Arthur”, whom the employees, customers, and “Good Arthur” are fighting, is that next generation of worthless kids looking to strip the store and cash out.
Here’s a new story on just how well the workers are treated—and paid: http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/07/24/personal-touch-family-feel-won-workers-loyalty-market-basket-grocery-chain/Y21o2OT2qwr2Dzwf588iHK/story.html
Here’s one on potential suitors. Sounds like “Good Arthur” should have led a buyout in 2010, though cash was harder to scrape up back then: