These are the latest blog updates. Click on the title to read the full article.
More regular updates can be found on the Twitter Feed and the Message Board.
Lucky Update
A Lucky update before I go to bed…
Updates
I’m in an updating frame of mind, trying to tie up some loose ends so I can finally start working on the Charlotte section of the site:
- San Francisco is almost complete.
- Stockton and Bakersfield are as complete as they’re likely to be for the foreseeable future.
On all these sections, I’ve tried a few techniques designed to make updates easier and quicker. I’m adding gallery pages rather than the pop-up windows I’d been doing, which allows me to generate the HTML right from my photo database. We’ll see how it goes…
A&P Futurestore, Myrtle Beach SC
Another store ID if I may?
I’m almost — but not completely — certain this was a mid-1980s A&P Futurestore. The location is the 9600 block on North Kings Highway in Myrtle Beach SC, if that helps…
Snapped some other interesting shots along the road to Myrtle Beach this weekend. I’ll try to post some soon…
New Message Board
The new and improved Groceteria.com Message Board is now open for business!
Cala Foods, 1095 Hyde Street, San Francisco
I was way too happy with this picture and I felt compelled to throw it up on the front page here. It’s the Cala Foods location at 1095 Hyde Street in San Francisco, built in the late 1950s.
It’s a beautiful store, and it was in fact the first supermarket I entered on my very first visit to California way back in 1991. It’s located at the base of Nob Hill, and it’s always packed. It must be fairly successful even despite the fact that it’s frequented by a very pedestrian clientele and probably has a rather small average transaction.
I wonder what will happen to it when the end arrives (probably soon) for Cala Foods and Bell Markets…
Off to San Francisco
Thanks to everyone who confirmed my suspicion that the Camden SC store pictured here was in fact a former Colonial…
I’m off to San Francisco for a couple of days. No, now that you ask, I HAVEN’T missed my former home since departing in June. But I will be glad for a chance to shoot pictures of the remaining Cala and Bell stores, because I’m pretty danged sure they won’t be there next time I visit. Or not under those names, at least…
Winn-Dixie in Greensboro
Poor old, forgotten Winn-Dixie…
For those of you who care about such things, this particular one was originally a Zayre store. The Winn-Dixie relocated from elsewhere in the same center (on Cone Boulevard in Greensboro NC) in the late 1980s, after Zayre gave up on the location…
I believe this was Greensboro’s first Winn-Dixie “Marketplace” location. There was one in Charlotte at Tryon and Sugar Creek with exactly the same façade; it had originally been a Woolco store, and it closed several years ago…
It’s interesting to see how the ever-increasing size of supermarkets caused them to take over so many old discount stores in Greensboro. A King’s store on West Market Street became a Kroger and later a Food Lion. The Kmart across the street became a relocated version of that same Kroger and then a Harris-Teeter. And Greensboro’s other Zayre store was briefly reborn as a Lowes Foods…
I have my doubts that there will be a new tenant in this old Winn-Dixie anytime soon, though…
Columbia Mystery
If it weren’t in Columbia, South Carolina, I’d almost think it had been a Safeway in an earlier life. I have no idea what this used to be, and I’m not even sure it was a supermarket. It’s located on Beltline Boulevard near Devine Street. Ideas?
And while I’m at it, how about this one from Camden, South Carolina. It’s on US 1 just east of downtown. It may have been an independent from day one. Or not. I sure don’t recognize the prototype…
That Brady Bunch Store
From a 1971 episode of “The Brady Bunch”. I’ve finally made a definitive ID of this store, which was the subject of a message board thread several months back…
It’s the Mayfair Market at Franklin and Bronson in Hollywood, just as I suspected. I’d guessed this before because of (1) the Victor’s Liquor van shown in one shot and (2) the fact that this store is very close to Paramount Studios where the show was filmed. It’s also interesting that this Mayfair Market is the last one of the chain still operating under the Mayfair name…
Tonight, I looked again after watching it on the just-released DVD set, and then I had the brilliant idea to look at the intersection on the Terraserver website, where a newer, higher resolution photo had been added since last check. And it was a perfect match to all the shots in the episode, including the strip mall across the street…
Mystery solved…
Beachs
From an episode of “Monk” I caught out of the corner of my eye last night, this is a store called “Beachs Market” (no apostrophe) at 7900 Imperial Boulevard in Downey CA. Does anyone have any info on what it might have been in its former life? It almost looks like it has some A&P-like features to me…
Some more pictures:
