Menu Close
  • Home

Welcome!

Groceteria.com is a site about the history of American and Canadian urban chain supermarkets, from the 1920s through the present, with an emphasis on buildings and locations.

Remodeling

As you can see, I’ve done some significant remodeling of ye olde Groceteria over the past few days.

Since people are inherently resistant to change, I’ll stick to the benefits of this particular round and leave the negatives for the comments (I’m kidding. Sort of.):

  • The main site and the message board now have relatively consistent navigation and actually look like one site. Imagine…
  • I think the typography is nicer and the layout in general is cleaner. Your mileage may vary.
  • The new base theme I’m using is incredibly customizable, which will no doubt allow me to do all sorts of new and fabulous things with it. Eventually.
  • Remodeling every few years is a generally good thing to do.

However, if you want nostalgia, here’s what the site looked like 25 years ago:

Site front page, 2000

For the record, I’m also still working on reformatting the location lists as I mentioned a week or two back. Canada is done and I’m working my way through the U.S. alphabetically. I’m somewhere in the middle of Illinois right now.

, , ,
Leave a comment

News and stuff

Sorry. It’s been a bit. Things have been very hectic at the day job (you know, the one where I actually get paid).

So…news:

I forgot to mention it here when it first ran, but you just might see a quote and a photo from yours truly if you read this article on SF Gate: After 70 years, San Francisco’s skyline ‘miracle’ is about to come to a close

Otherwise, most of the action has been on Bluesky of late, but here are some recent additions, for those who care:

I’m also working on a project to reformat all the location lists and make them more mobile-friendly and discoverable through the search function. I’ve done all of Canada and am working my way through the U.S. (currently at California). As it happens, the only link above that I have done so far is San Francisco.

And that’s the way it is.

, , , ,
Leave a comment

Pay’n Takit to return

In a surprise announcement on the first day of April, Albertsons has revealed that its Safeway subsidiary will be reviving the century-old Pay’n Takit brand for a new discount chain focused on self service and cash sales.

Established in Arizona in approximately 1921, Pay’n Takit was acquired by Safeway in 1928 and the branding was used in several markets into the 1930s.

Additional stores may open on the first day of April in subsequent years. Most will be conversions of existing properties, but a prototype deign for new builds has also been leaked:

, , ,
Leave a comment

More updates


All updates…