[citation needed] The success of the first store led the Toppels to open 43 other Pueblo Supermarkets around the Island and, by 1960, to convert the enterprise into a public company that began trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

[citation needed] The entire chain was auctioned in September 2007 as part of the Chapter 11 Bankruptcy process, where a bid by Ramón Calderón president of Holsum of Puerto Rico (a baker goods company) for $139 million succeeded in taking over the rest of its operations.

In September, 2009 Pueblo, Inc. sold its flagship store in Campo Rico Avenue, Carolina (next to their Corporate Headquarters and Distribution Center) to Econo Supermarkets.

The store was a subsidiary of Pueblo International, which had purchased the franchise for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, for an undisclosed amount, from the BLOCKBUSTER Entertainment Corporation (BEC), which was the largest video-movie rental chain in the world at the time.

Filiberto Berríos, then general manager of the chain of stores, said that Pueblo had plans to open two more in the metropolitan area, have nine in operation by the end of 1991 and 22 in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands by 1992.

The Blockbuster chain had undergone a significant transformation about four years earlier, when local franchisee BB Entertainment of Puerto Rico, LLC, which was headed by entrepreneur Susana Santamaría, invested about $1 million to purchase 13 locations from the Colorado-based corporation.

That transaction, which secured the Blockbuster operation in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, markedly whittled down the chain’s presence from the 40 stores it had at the height of its success.

By this point the chain had already closed stores in Hato Rey, Isla Verde, Plaza del Norte in San Juan, Fajardo, Mayagüez, and Aguadilla.

The closings of local Blockbuster locations in Puerto Rico and the USVI mirrored what has been taking place stateside, where parent company Dish Network had announced that January that it planned to shutter 300 stores across the U.S.