Ask anyone in Florida where they shop for groceries, and odds are good you'll hear the same name. With 1,418 stores across the country — nearly 900 of them in Florida — Publix is so ingrained in daily life that avoiding it would take a serious detour. Much of that loyalty comes from the way Publix presents itself: clean stores, dependable produce, and weekly buy-one-get-one deals that inspire something close to a ritual among its regulars. Publix grocery got its name from an unlikely source: a series of shuttered movie theaters that inspired founder George Jenkins when he opened the first store in Winter Haven in 1930. From a modest start, the chain expanded through the Depression years and beyond, positioning itself not just as another supermarket but as a uniquely Floridian institution.