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Anyone have information on the A&P stores that were rebranded as "A" Mart? Was this an "experimental" format or something? I can remember a few of them in the Milwaukee area, before A&P left the market.

Thanks for the reply. Nice A&P page. I forgot all about the "WEO" period.

"Large" wouldn't have been the most operative term for these stores. The ones near us in Cleveland were underperforming centennials and not necessarily the largest stores they had. In fact, the biggest ones (> 20K sf) remained A&Ps. The first conversion was an early centennial that was relatively small (~15K sf) (and still stands). They usually did not convert inner city locations, where they faced less competition. The same pattern was evident in Chicago. This all happened c. 1969/70. They ultimately rebranded all of the stores as A-Mart/A&P, a rather costly exercise I would imagine. My guess is that before the changeover they had more than 150 A-Marts.

I recall an "A-Mart" A&P at Southgate Shopping Center. It eventually became a regular A&P again after the "WEO" concept rolled out.

I seem to recall that Atlantic Richfield (Arco), and later Sunoco, had convenience stores that used the "A-Mart" name, but Arco later renamed them "AM/PM" (a trademark now used by BP). After Arco pulled out of the eastern US, Sunoco took over many of these stations, some operating under the "Atlantic" name again, with the "A" in "A-Mart" meaning "Atlantic". Eventually Sunoco changed the name of their C-stores to "A Plus".

The A-Plus name originated from Atlantic, and was not created by Sunoco when they acquired the Atlantic assets. Sunoco expanded the A-Plus branding mainly to corporate stores now, especially the units acquired from ConocoPhillips who was running Mobil stations in the Washington/Baltimore area.

As for the Southgate A&P, where on the site was it located?

The A&P was on the Libby/Warrensville Center side, behind the May Co., at the very end of the L-shaped strip. It is currently a Murray's Auto Parts. This was one of the nicer A&P's at the time, and lasted nearly to the end of their Cleveland operations. A&P had built a new store nearby at Northfield and Solon Roads in Bedford (currently Giant Eagle) during the period that they built some larger stores, and began giving Eagle Stamps as a final effort to improve their market share in Cleveland. Both stores remained open for a short time, but eventually the Southgate store closed, presumably to send the business over to the Bedford store. The Bedford store became Reider's Stop-n-Shop, and then Giant Eagle.

I always thought that Bedford Giant Eagle was a former A&P. I recognized the exterior from their MD stores, but didn't know if they lasted long enough to get to that in Cleveland.

Being inside that Giant Eagle, it appears there was an expansion that knocked out an old drug store at some point. I'm guessing that was Revco since there's a freestanding CVS across from that Giant Eagle?

You are correct. There was a Revco adjacent to the A&P, which became a CVS and lasted until they moved across the street. Giant Eagle then expanded into the Revco/CVS space. A&P had built three of these stores in Cleveland that I know of, the Bedford one, one on Brookpark and Ridge Roads in Cleveland (could be Brooklyn) and one in North Olmsted on Lorain Road that never opened.

Would the one in North Olmsted be the older shopping center far down Lorain Rd. where the Advance Auto Parts is now? There's a freestanding Rite Aid across from that one.

And the Brookpark/Ridge intersection would indeed be Brooklyn, not Cleveland.

What was the GE in the Warren Village center (Warren & Edgecliff) originally? It has that same type of roof as the Bedford store, but I was told it was a Stop N Shop before GE.

The Giant Eagle at Warren & Edgecliff doesn't have the A&P overhang of the 70's. I'd say it most likely was a Stop N Shop.

That was an early 1950s Fazio's (pre-Fisher Foods, pre-organization of the Stop-n-Shop co-op). It was a Rini/Rego after the Fazio/Riser Foods (S-n-S) merger. It's an old store and and old plaza which, at one time, had oddities like a Montgomery Ward catalog pick-up and a Neisner's (probably started as a Woolworth).

Speaking of the oil companies, when Exxon and Mobil merged, many of their stations remodeled to the new company's look. That was in 1999. Many of the same stations were sold to ConocoPhillips, which sold them to Lukoil, which rebranded them just a few years later. Maybe the Lukoil transaction was only in Pennsylvania, in the immediate Philadelphia area. The only Lukoils in Delaware were conversions from Getty. Many Lukoils have since closed due to a franchise dispute. In Maryland, it was Valero.

Back to the grocery topic, I noticed this: in southern Delaware (or was it Maryland), lots of the Valero stations have "Stop & Shop" convenience stores. They have the same branding as the grocery chain, except the traffic light logo is slightly different. Perhaps that was an older version of the logo? Or does it signify the convenience store?

This is incredibly off topic, but the PA stations went to Lukoil, the MD and VA stations went to Sunoco.