Home : Groceteria Journal : 2007 : August

August 2007

Previously...

6 August 2007 | Link this

Behold the Food King. Per Groceteria reader Robby Delius, this store in Rockingham NC began life as an A&P, and was operating as a Piggly Wiggly by 1973. I visited this weekend, and found groovy, vintage Piggly Wiggly-ness inside:

6 August 2007 Later | Link this

So it's that time of year again: the moment when I offer you the vulgar yet subtle reminder that, ummm, my birthday is this Friday.

13 August 2007 | Link this

I made a road trip up to Wilkesboro and North Wilkesboro on Sunday. These foothill towns have always been a little over-retailed relative to their size, because they serve a rather large, rural hinterland. The Wilkesboro area is also the birthplace both of Lowes Foods, the regional grocery retailer, and of the nationally-known Lowes Home Improvement.

I'm guessing the store in the photo above, just east of downtown North Wilkesboro, is a former A&P, but I could be wrong. The store below, located east of downtown, definitely was, though:

This one may have done some time as an A&P as well, even though it was obviously built as a Kroger. Note the revamped pole sign sporting A&P's Sav-a-Center logo , probably from the late 1980s:

The Sav-a-Center inset photo is by Groceteria reader Thom Wright, by the way.

The following, from downtown Wilkesboro, strikes me as a likely Piggly Wiggly location, but I have no evidence to back that up:

Last on the tour is a remodeled, but seemingly rather old (and definitely very small) Lowes Foods on old US 421:

15 August 2007 | Link this

Allow me to introduce Shop Groceteria.com. Once inside, you can purchase books on supermarket history, movies that feature vintage store locations, and (surprise) even groceries. You can actually use this page (or the handy Amazon search box in the right column of this page) to make all your purchases from Amazon.com, and a portion of every purchase goes to support my reading and video habit this site's lofty educational mission.

Enjoy.

17 August 2007 | Link this

For those of you who care, your humble host is interviewed today on Yahoo! Picks Profiles. It's a followup to when this site was a Pick of the Week back in 2001.

28 August 2007 | Link this

Courtesy of Mike, this photo of the spooky, abandoned A&P offices in Paterson NJ shows label scars from at least two different versions of the A&P logo.

From Robby Delius, an interesting TV news shot of an early 1980s Big Star in Durham NC highlights the chain's Grand Union era makeover.

Continue...