Preston-Safeway

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TheStranger
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Preston-Safeway

Post by TheStranger »

Talking to Storewanderer online, the subject of the Indiana-area Preston-Safeway chain came up, and he said that it had been discussed on the old Groceteria board some time ago...apparently it was originally part of the larger Safeway chain, but was subsequently sold off well before the KKR buyout (1970s?) along with the continuing rights to use the name. Apparently they also had at least one marina store.

There are several locations out in Indianapolis, at least one in Fort Wayne, and probably others scattered across the state. Anyone have more information?

Here's some location addresses via Google, and live local shots to go with them - note the different Safeway letter font from anywhere else I've ever seen

5602 N Illinois St, Indianapolis, IN
http://local.live.com/?v=2&sp=Point.qn8 ... d%20States___

2176 Shelby St, Indianapolis, IN
http://local.live.com/?v=2&sp=Point.qmp ... d%20States___

2153 Barth Ave, Indianapolis, IN
http://local.live.com/?v=2&sp=Point.qmp ... d%20States___

2435 N Sherman Dr, Indianapolis, IN
http://local.live.com/?v=2&sp=Point.qn0 ... d%20States___

3008 Kessler Blvd North Dr, Indianapolis, IN
http://local.live.com/?v=2&sp=Point.qn1 ... d%20States___

5040 E 16th St, Indianapolis, IN
http://local.live.com/?v=2&sp=Point.qmy ... d%20States___

2120 W Morris St, Indianapolis, IN
http://local.live.com/?v=2&sp=Point.qmr ... d%20States___

4540 N Shadeland Ave, Indianapolis, IN - offset gable?
http://local.live.com/?v=2&sp=Point.qn5 ... d%20States___
Apparently this was the site of an armed robbery-turned-murder in 2004:
http://www.indygov.org/eGov/City/DPS/IP ... wilcox.htm


107 S Pennsylvania St, Indianapolis, IN
http://local.live.com/?v=2&sp=Point.qmt ... d%20States___

514 N Harrison St, Shelbyville, IN
http://local.live.com/?v=2&sp=Point.qkn ... d%20States___

A former location's mentioned here:
http://www.u-e-a.org/properties.htm
Previously Safeway Grocery 2131 Central Avenue, 15000 SqFt
Live Local: http://local.live.com/?v=2&sp=Point.pnc ... d%20States___ - sideways gable?

Another former location mentioned:
http://www.icndindy.org/cdcs/cafe.htm
Raised over $2000000 towards the purchase and renovation of the former Safeway/Osco at 38th Street and Post Road for re-use as a Neighborhood Center.
(Osco moved across the street)
http://local.live.com/default.aspx?v=2& ... ne=2278526
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Post by rich »

This was never part of Safeway and has been discussed before. Always a local operation and relatively small until they bought National Tea's Standard/DelFarm operation around 1982-84. That's probably how they got the Fort Wayne store. Standard had added a store or two there before being sold. At one time, Standard had stores in all the sizable county seat towns within about 100 miles of Indy, places like Richmond, Terre Haute, Bloomington, etc.

Preston-Safeway operated as an all things to all people chain and inherited a wide variety of store sizes (and ages) from Standard including modern super stores and c. 1950s places. They were greatly crippled after Cub entered the market. Kroger was better positioned to compete on price and Marsh on quality, although Marsh is hurting now.
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Post by rich »

The 38th & Post store was probably acquired from Jewel, which opened combo stores around Indy, mostly near I-465 in the early 70s. They also had stores in Bloomington which lasted in to the late 80s, after the Indy stores had closed. Marsh has one of those. There also was a Del Farm around 38th & Post, but I don't think it was a combo--National never developed its Kare Drug operation in Indy to the extent it did in some other places like Chicago & St. Louis. The Oscos in Indiana were separate from the Jewels so that they could sell liquor, as I recall.
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Post by TheStranger »

Another location, in Beech Grove:

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:wze ... clnk&cd=19
Indiana Grocery Company/Preston Safeway Food Stores, are proud to announce Julie A. Teipen of Preston Safeway in Beech Grove, IN, is their company's winner of their "Best Bagger Contest". Teipen beat employees from 27 other Preston Safeway/Lowell's stores to claim her title.
Teipen, who is a night stock clerk at Preston Safeway, Beech Grove, located at 1815 Albany, will compete for the State Title at the Indiana Retail Grocers Association State Championship Bag-Off at the Indianapolis Convention Center Sunday, September 11.
It is now a Marsh that looks suspiciously like a marina store:
http://local.live.com/?v=2&sp=Point.qmm ... d%20States___
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Post by TheStranger »

Another thing that just hit me: while the SAFEWAY sign font in Indiana is vastly different from most Safeways I have been to, it looks like this one in Leavenworth, WA that I had posted earlier in the Northwest thread:

http://members.tripod.com/~marcaroro/Me ... est-3.html

http://members.tripod.com/~marcaroro/Se ... ier/13.jpg (cut and paste URL in browser; clicking on link will not work)
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Post by rich »

Keep in mind that the marina style roof was pretty common for structural reasons and often was obstructed by a false front that wasn't curved. Some supermarkets took the place of other businesses that had used these roofs these like roller rinks or theatres. There was a long running Pick-n-Pay on Euclid Avenue in Cleveland near Cleveland Clinic (I think it's a drug store now) that was in a former roller rink. The Rink's discount store chain began in a roller or ice rink, hence, the name.
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Post by marshd1000 »

The Safeway font at the Leavenworth, WA store is different for a reason. Back in the early 1960's, Leavenworth was a dying town. Then some businesses started to remodel with Bavarian architechture. Those businesses prospered. Eventually almost all the businesses in town did likewise. Now the town is a tourist attraction and a law was passed that all businesses would have to adopt the Bavarian theme. That particular Safeway probably didn't originally look like that. But the law forced it to change the lettering and put the ginger bread trim on the store. The store in that picture is now closed as Safeway moved to a brand new location with it's store and font looking even more Bavarian and not like a retrofit.
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Post by TheStranger »

Here's a really good shot of one example:

http://www.halstead-architects.com/cafe2.html
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Post by Groceteria »

Interestingly enough, even though there is definitely no connection to the "legitimate" Safeway, Preston Safeway has no qualms about using the "lifestyle" font, as I noticed last week at the 5040 East 16th Street store in Indianapolis:

Image
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Post by storewanderer »

I've heard this chain is bankrupt. Can anyone confirm?
Photobucket now allows for comments on each photo! http://s196.photobucket.com/albums/aa113/StoreWest/
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Post by rich »

My recollection is that they went into Chapter 11 several years ago. By then, all they had were the Indy stores and I thought those were ultimately liquidated. I was surpised to see that they still had a handful of stores when I was in Indy a couple weeks ago--perhaps, some store managers found investors to keep some locations going and buy the name.
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Re: Preston-Safeway

Post by rich »

I recently got on the subject of Preston-Safeway and here are a couple indications that it had nothing to do with the the "other Safeway", instead it apparently was the largest Italian owned business in Indianapolis (significant in a place with a famously xenophobic history):
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/indyst ... =155009906
https://books.google.com/books?id=oiAUm ... is&f=false
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