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February 2007

Previously...

6 February 2007 | Link this

Spotlight on Atlanta, Georgia. The following logos are from the 17 August 1978 issue of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. The newspapers combined publication that day due to a blackout downtown. The actual newspaper was only four pages, but the food sections had apparently already been printed and were included in their entirety.

The Big Apple and Food Giant chains have been discussed on the Message Board.

A&P would remain a fairly major player in Atlanta until 1999, when it sold many of its stores to Publix.

Big Star, built on the foundation of Colonial Stores, was purchased by Grand Union in 1978. The Atlanta division lasted longer than the rest of Big Star, until 1992, when most of the stores were sold to A&P. Big Star also operated the food departments of Richway discount department stores, in much the same way that Colonial had operated Kmart Food stores in some areas.

Kroger is the only one of the 1978 chains to still have operations in Atlanta.

I really don't know anything about Thriftown and Big Buy.

And we all know about Winn-Dixie. Enough said.

7 February 2007 | Link this

Still-open Save Mart store, Sonora CA. From Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (1974).

12 February 2007 | Link this

Colonial Store, 514 North Cherry Street, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Open 27 October 1938. Closed 24 May 1958. Since demolished. Photo from the now-defunct Twin City Sentinel.

Originally a Big Star, this 12,000 square foot store was widely regarded as Winston-Salem's first self-service supermarket. It came shortly after the opening of the David Pender Grocery Company's first Big Star supermarket in downtown Greensboro, thirty miles east.

What does this all mean? Only that I'm well into my research on the upcoming Winston-Salem section of this site. Comments and submissions welcome.

15 February 2007 | Link this

Safeway, Kensington MD, circa 1949. This store was replaced in 1964 with an arch-roofed Marina prototype store, and was demolished last year to construct a third store at the same site. Obviously, some 1940s employee of Safeway's real estate department made a really good call on this one.

16 February 2007 | Link this

The photo above was emailed to be by my husband, who's working in San Francisco this week. So it happens on Monday. After more than sixty years as one of the most recognized names in San Francisco grocery retailing, most Cala Foods and Bell Market stores will become Delano's IGA. Sounds vaguely like the name of a feed store, doesn't it?

When I first moved to San Francisco, Cala stores were exactly how I'd always imagined "urban" supermarkets would be: small, old, and almost comically overpriced. Despite the fact that shopping there regularly would have bankrupted me, I always liked visiting their stores. In fact, the Cala store at 1095 Hyde Street (featured earlier here and here) was the first supermarket I ever visited in California, and it remains one of my favorite stores ever.

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