Groceteria.com

There is a Wherehouse branded store in Clovis, Ca -- unless they've changed it in the 3 months since I moved from that area. Sometimes chains will operate one-off stores of retired names just to protect the trademark. That's why there's still a Standard station in San Francisco, so another company ...

I suppose that's no more unusual than the ever popular "Asian Bistro" that seems to be prevalent around here these days.

Oddly enough, I just found out today that a new Trader Joe's store is moving into a shopping center here in Redmond which already has a QFC (which itself is already three blocks away from another QFC store.) Since those two aren't really directly competing with each other (Trader Joe's has much smal...

Speaking of the exploding clown, here's the commercial (which appears to be from 1980, although I think they used portions of it in 1985 when they did the Monterey Jack's switchover:) Link (Youtube) It was the clown, of course, that had the last laugh. Link (Youtube) And as long as we're on the subj...

I thought I'd look at the Wikipedia page on JITB after that weird commercial during the Super Bowl. Apparently in the 80's after getting rid of the "clown", the company changed some of its stores to "Monterey Jack's". I don't remember that here in CA. It didn't work out well and...

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I actually visited the Lakewood Mall as the mall was being demolished, and remember going inside the Target store and seeing what looked like a closed gate that led in to the old mall, which was located to the right, just past the restaurant, which was common fo...

There's a 1971 Jack in the Box (I found grand opening ads in the paper showing the grand opening in January 1971) at the corner of Bellevue Way and Main in Bellevue WA which is still operating as a Jack in the Box. It looks like by that time they toned down the roofline, but the style is still simil...

While doing some research in local history, I have come across advertisements for IGA Foodliner stores that were apparently located in a couple of different locations in Redmond: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/Vexorg/Sledgehammer/RedmondShoppingSquare_opens.jpg The first one was in the Redmo...

According to an article I found on one of the local 7-Eleven stores opening, they started selling gas in 1971. The location near here is notable as being one of the first "Super-Seven" locations which included a larger gas station with fifteen pumps and its own attendant, as opposed to the...

I had the pleasure to work with all four generations of IBM Supermarket scanning technology, I miss those days very much. Seattle Division Safeway installed scanning in the Bear Creek and Redmond stores using the Sperry Univac solution. Sperry Univac decided to pull out of the Retail UPC scanner te...

All of the Gottschalks in the Seattle area (acquired from the Lamonts bankruptcy in 2000) closed down several years ago, but I think there are still a couple of scattered locations in the outlying area (I know of one in Marysville, not sure about others.) . Some have found new tenants (the former Cr...

James Lileks just put up an old Lucky matchbook depicting a can of Lady Lee peaches that should interest some people here:

http://www.lileks.com/match/gallery/316.html

I think this is a fairly common design feature of many small and medium-sized "Main Street" department stores. The Kirkland building was built in 1929, and I believe it was occupied by Penney's from the start. Keep in mind many downtown Penney (and Sears) locations were move-ins to existi...

I went and took a look at the former JCPenney in Kirkland yesterday, and I found that the store has been subdivided into a "mini-mall" type place which was occupied by a somewhat divey looking bar (which hadn't opened for the day when I got there yet,) some random clothing shop, a nail sal...

Perhaps there was a pizzeria by that name in Redmond after Mario Bros. came out. I have heard the "Mario as grouchy landlord" story numerous places over the years, so unless it is a piece of invented "Nintendo Lore" I tend to believe it as the origin of the character's name. It ...