More regular updates can be found on Bluesky and the Message Board.
Much new content
Sorry for the long lapse in content around these parts. My personal life has been less than optimal the past few months (long story) and I’ve also been very preoccupied with work.
Anyway, I’m happy to present the following for your amusement today:
- Atlanta: A location spreadsheet covering 1930-1991 and a new photo gallery. I envision some narrative here soon.
- Boston: A location spreadsheet covering 1955-1974.
- Los Angeles: A location spreadsheet covering 1932-1942.
- Portland (OR): A location spreadsheet covering 1956-1962.
Tomorrow (if my enthusiasm holds out), I’ll be posting location spreadsheets and photo galleries for Pittsburgh and Columbia SC.
And soon, I really will be completing the updated history of Safeway that I started a few months back.
Golden Gate Harris-Teeter closing
This is kind of sad. One of the two oldest continuously operating chain supermarkets in my hometown is closing. The Harris Teeter location at Golden Gate Shopping Center opened in 1961 as an A&P. A Kroger opened simultaneously at the other end of the center. The Kroger was replaced about 1975 with one of Greensboro’s first Food Town (now Food Lion) stores. The A&P lasted until the late 1970s and became a Bestway (local chain) and then Harris Teeter in 1988. Centers with two supermarket anchors were common at the time but are rarely seen anymore.
The view above is from 1999. Below is a 1961 “grand opening” photo from the Greensboro Daily News:
Along Highway 70
Just got back from a conference in Morehead City NC and thought I’d throw up a few pictures I grabbed in cities along the way back. I only had my phone camera with me, so the quality is somewhat lacking. Above is a beautiful former Colonial store at 1201 Broad Street in New Bern. It was closed so I was unable to determine if there were any interesting interior remnants.
This former A&P is at 919 Broad Street, also in New Bern.
Colonial Stores/Stop & Shop, Indianapolis, late 1950s
Contact sheet (click image above to enlarge) of several Indianapolis Stop and Shop locations after they were purchased by Colonial Stores in 1955 (but before they were subsequently unloaded in 1959). Colonial purchased the Albers chain in Ohi0 at about the same time and had much better luck with those stores. Colonial did similar co-branding with both chains.
These are from a large collection of construction archives I recently acquired. They’d been sitting in the abandoned Colonial Stores HQ in Atlanta for probably twenty years. Lots more to come.
Colonial Stores Treasure Trove
This is big.
A very observant member of an Atlanta architctural firm (who’s now my hero, by the way) contacted me a few weeks ago to tell me about some materials he found while working on a client project, wondering if I might be interested. I picked the stuff up today. Turns out it came from the former headquarters of Colonial Stores and was apparently material that was simply abandoned upon the demise of the company in 1988 and had been sitting in the office ever since.
The take: twelve boxes and more than a dozen rolls of blueprints, sign plans, mechanical drawings, lease information, and other material. It seems this may be most of the records of the real estate and/or construction department of the chain. There are layouts and fixture plans dating to at least 1952, proposals for the conversion of the Albers stores in the Midwest after that chain was acquired by Colonial Stores in 1955, and lost of materials on the conversion of stores to the Big Star format in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This is incredible stuff and I am really grateful that it was saved from the dumpster and that I was able to get my hands on it. I’m just starting to go through all the boxes and I’ll keep you posted.
It’s amazing what you can fit inside a 2002 Buick LeSabre when you try really hard:
Philadelphia Road Trip
Some photos from my recent road trip to Philadelphia, including lots of interior shots of the most well-preserved Penn Fruit store in exsistence. I’ve also added a few shots from a 2008 trip. Enjoy…
Is It Sad…
That I spent a chunk of my Saturday night on the iPad using Google Street View to determine the location of the closest supermarket to Hyacinth Bucket’s house and then got really excited when I determined that it would have been this Morrisons that I believe was originally a Safeway?
It’s even on the way to Onslow and Daisy’s house.
Safeway in Spokane, 1941
While doing research for some long-promised updates on the site, I ran across this ad from 1941 that lists six new “deluxe drive-in” Safeway stores in Spokane, Washington, along with a list of all then-extant stores in the city. It gives a great picture of Safeway’s presence in one city at the time, as well as providing a glimpse into the state of the chain in general.
By 1940, Safeway had moved decisively into the “supermarket” era after a somewhat conservative start. New stores at the time averaged 6000-6500 square feet and boasted tiled meat and produce departments and employee showers. These stores were also among the first to feature parking lots as a standard amenity, usually to the side of the store and approximately the same square footage as well. Safeway had been building some stores with parking lots as early as the late 1920s, but they were far from universal. In fact, in 1940, Safeway was operating hundreds of older units in taxpayer strips or on the first floors of apartment or commercial buildings, most of which were a fraction of the size of the new supermarkets and some of which dated from the 1920s and had originally operated under any number of other brands. The Spokane stores, for example, had largely started under the Piggly Wiggly, MacMarr, or Pay’n Takit names, all of which had different points of entry into the Safeway corporate structure.
A surprising number of Safeway’s class of 1941 are still standing in Spokane, including a very ornate former Pay”n Takit store like the one shown above. Here’s the list:
New “Deluxe Drive-in” stores:
- Division and Garland
- 3rd and Sherman
- South Monroe at 10th (could not locate the store near this intersection)
- Broadway and Walnut
- 3rd and Cedar
- N. Monroe at Jackson
Existing stores:
- 514 S. Washington St.
- 727 W. Garland Av.
- 814 W. Riverside Av.
- 1704 N. Monroe St.
- 5005 N. Market St.
- 3002 Grand Av.
- 2022 E. Sprague Av. (this is a very ornate former Pay’n Takit)
- 3315 Northwest Blvd.
- Division at Sinto
- Hamilton and Mission (interestingly enough, there’s still a Safeway at this intersection, albeit not a 70-plus year old one)
Fifty Years Ago Today…
Four men sat down at a segregated lunch counter in Greensboro NC and changed history. The event was commemorated today with the opening of the International Civil Rights Center & Museum in the former Woolworth store where the sit-ins began.
On the same day, eighty miles south in Charlotte, “Harris Super Markets and Teeter’s Food Marts officially merged to form Harris Teeter Super Markets, Inc. There were already 15 stores in operation. The first ‘Harris Teeter’ store to open under the new banner was in Kannapolis, NC.” (via Harris Teeter website and The Charlotte Observer).
Tampa Section Added
There’s a new section on Tampa Bay area chain supermarket history, with a timeline and additional photos.
Enjoy.