but by 1987, Penn Traffic agreed to an offer by an affiliate of the investment firm and the company was briefly taken private for $131 million. In 1988, under then-chairman Gary Hirsch, Penn Traffic began an acquisition program. Hirsch first took Penn Traffic public, raising $25 million, and then added Syracuse-based P&C Food Markets for $219 million. In 1989, Penn Traffic acquired Ohio chain Big Bear Stores for $341 million. P&C Foods P&C Foods began in 1944 as the Producers and Consumers food cooperative in Ithaca, New York as a way for farmers in Upstate New York to get their products to market efficiently. Until 2010, Penn Traffic operated 70 P&C supermarkets serving the Syracuse metropolitan area as well as many other communities in upstate New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. P&C was also a major wholesaler in upstate New York; from its Syracuse warehouse, the company served 99 independent supermarkets in central New York, the majority of which still operate under the Big M franchise trade name. In 1997 a new ballpark for the Syracuse Chiefs opened. Penn Traffic owned the naming rights for nine baseball seasons of P & C Stadium. The last 'P&C Foods' branded grocery store closed on January 21, 2012 in Bath, NY when the building was sold to Moran Foods, Owner of Save-A-Lot by order of the FTC. Big Bear When the first Big Bear store opened in 1933, it marked the beginning of self-service supermarket operations in the Midwest. Big Bear was the first supermarket in the country to use cashier-operated motorized conveyor belts and the first to use an IBM mainframe computer. In the 1980s, its Big Bear Plus stores combined a supermarket with a general merchandise store. Penn Traffic operated 70 Big Bear and Big Bear Plus stores in Ohio and West Virginia until early 2004. As a result of Penn Traffic's 2003 bankruptcy filing, these stores were either closed or sold to other companies, such as grocery retailer Giant Eagle, while other properties were left vacant and still remain vacant. The Columbus, Ohio warehouses operated by Big Bear were also left vacant and subsequently torn down for redevelopment. Keeping Up In the early and middle 1990s Penn Traffic continued to grow as it acquired and built other supermarkets in and near its primary markets. During this time, Penn Traffic entered the Buffalo and Erie markets with the Quality trade