Groceteria.com Message Board

Long Island used to be innundated with A&P supermarkets. In fact, growing up in the 70's, I remember that A&P was my mothers favorite store. In fact, just going to 1 a&p wasn't enough. She had 3 A&P's in her arsenal that she would visit during the course of the month. She used to say that each store had different stuff. I don't know how true that was. In fact, i was planning to ask her what the deal was with that the next time i talk to her. Anyway, the last A&P I know of on Long Island was in Mattituck. That one was converted to a Waldbaums about 7 years ago. Personally, I liked A&P better. I wonder if they will ever change back.

A&P is now the parent company for Waldbaums and operates stores under the Waldbalms name, A&P, Farmer Jack, The Food Emporium and others. I noticed that they converted many A&P's into Waldbaums in New York. And converted Waldbaums locations north of NYC and in CT to the A&P banner.

In Connecticut, I remember it was called "Waldbaums Foodmart". Today the stores are "A&P SuperFood Mart".

The parent company website http://www.aptea.com has all of the chains in the A&P family and links to the individual sites.

At one point in time, there may have been an A&P every other block in Queens. There were several Waldbaums as well, especially in Flushing/Bayside Queens. By the 1980's both chains had dwindled to a few with the former locations becoming Met Food, Key Food, C-Town, Associated and other independants and co-ops.

I hated the A & P Store. The one in Southampton was an institution to that town. In fact Turbo - while growing up my first exposure to supermarkets were: A & P, Bohack, IGA, and King Kullen. The later became a Gristedes. Now there is a name for you to search. I do believe though that it was only four years ago that the Southampton A & P changed to Waldbaums. I understand now that all the former Waldbaums in Queens are now A & P Stores. I have not seen an A & P in Brooklyn for years, but Waldbaums may or may not still be there. We had a Waldbaums in Gravesend. A & P also operates in New Jersey as well. To the best of my knowledge, all of their other stores are now called Waldbaums. We must get Edric on this one! He may be sleeping at his keyboard though.

I grew up in New York, and I remember that, at one time, there was an A&P almost everywhere. It was another way of saying "the store"; "I'm going to the A&P".

When I moved to upstate NY in the 70's, all of the stores up there were either closed or preparing to do so. There was a huge Ann Page Foods division food processing plant owned by A&P in Horseheads, NY, built in the mid 60s, which closed in the late 70s or early 80s. It sat vacant for a very long time and has recently been demolished to make way for, among other things, a WalMart Supercenter.

A (very) few of them hung on in upstate for a bit longer - I remember Hudson, East Greenbush and Red Hook (so those are at least early 80's - Red Hook being the last of that bunch) and also I know there was one in Wynantskill (near Troy) until early 1997, and a couple in the Adirondacks (Saranac & Tupper Lake at least, seems there was a 3rd one also) for a couple years after that (probably 2000ish when they closed).

Now the farthest north you'll find them would be either Pleasant Valley (outside Poughkeepsie) or one odd, old, small store in Margaretville (a ways outside of Kingston), which for some reason is run by the CT group (Super FoodMart) - as were the two in the Adirondacks!

A&P now has the NY/NJ division and the CT division as 1 division. also, the West Hartford CT A&P Super Foodmart is now under the Waldbaum's division (this was the only A&P Super Foodmart that retained the Waldbaum's name on the signage)

Hi, I remember calling on the A&P unit in Red Hook when I worked for Quaker Oats back in the late70!s , early 1980!s. It was a small museum piece outof the late 1940!s , but in great shape. The store had mechanical registers, and the check stands still had hand pulls! The produce department had a small refrigerated case, an ice case, and a dry rack.
I saw it!s twin when we visited my brother In Law in Winstead Conn a few years later still operating as an A&P but not in such good condition as the one in Red Hook( It is now a Movie store)
I remember that A&P was then in the process of closing stores in Albany division. They had closed stores in the Catskills, and all othe In Orange county, with the exception of one old store in Scots Corners and one in downtown Middletown NY. In a two year period A&P
closed stores in Middletown (across from Lyods), Newburg, Monroe, Jeffersonville (adjacent to
the Great American) and I believe Port Jervis.

Hi everyone,
I worked for Waldbaums for 15 years.
We had 141 stores, now they are down to 63.
There are only 4 stores left in Brooklyn, and 2 only in Staten Island.
After A&P aquired us in November 1986, the stores started to close one right after another. What a shame.

Today Great A&P is reviving all of its banners to make them more competitive with other chains.

You'll be seeing conversions to Pathmark Sav-a-centers as well as several Food Emporiums to A&P Fresh Markets.

This is an exciting time for A&P as its 150th anniversary year begins in 2009, only months away.

It is wonderful to read such glowing memories from all the various posters on this fantastic site.

Hoping all of you Great A&P fans will have memories to share from the last 50 years as the count down begins towards the 150th anniversary year celebration and festivities.

The only thing that I've read from A&P corporate website is the conversion of 8 Philadelphia area super fresh & all Philadelphia area Pathmark stores to "Pathmark Sav-A-Center".

Does anyone know why in early 2000 to 2002 ALL A&P stores pulled out of Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and either put the Waldbaum name on the building, or simply closed the stores?

I have a few Pathmark stores by me. I'd love to see them converted to sav-a-centers. I'd also welcome the A&P name back into the area.

Most likely they were just consolidating brands, which is not uncommon and makes advertising a lot easier. If I'm not mistaken, the A&P name was retired in pretty much all of NYC over the past ten years, in favor of either Waldbaum's or Food Emporium. They've made similar moves in other markets over the years, as has been discussed in any number of threads here.

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No, they are converting some of the A&P (Superfresh, particularly) stores TO Pathmark and adding the Sav a center name (making the sign Pathmark Sav A Center), not adding the A&P name in

In Suffolk, how many of the Waldbaums that are still open that used to be A&P? I know of Southampton, East Hampton (I think?), and Holbrook, but being a young lad and not really traveling all over the island at that time, I can't remember any others. Can someone fill me in?

As a kid (I'm pretty young, heh), my parents shopped at Finast in Medford (which switched to Edwards to Stop & Shop before finally moving to the middle of the plaza as the existing S&S three years ago); the closed Waldbaum's in East Patchogue (which will become a Shoprite soon); the Waldbaums in Patchogue on Sunrise (I remember this one used to be real small and it was something else before I was born); the Pathmarks in Sun-Vet Mall and the one in Shirley; and the Waldbaums in Deer Park near where my grandma lived. I also remember there being King Kullen in the former Caldor shopping center (now soon to be Lowe's) in East Patchogue, but I never was in there.