Updated location list: Winnipeg through 1975

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Updated location list: Winnipeg through 1975

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Andrew T.
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Re: Updated location list: Winnipeg through 1975

Post by Andrew T. »

This weekend, I stumbled upon a horde of historical images from Winnipeg uploaded by a Flickr user named Jerry Olenko. (What the sources were are anyone's guess...he doesn't say.)

As might be expected, there are a wealth of supermarket images to go around. Here's what I found:
Dominion and Loblaws (paired side-by-side in the same centre!!), Polo Park, 1974
Safeway and Loblaws (still paired side-by-side!), Polo Park, 1984. Taken shortly after Dominion sold its western Canada assets in 1983.
Dominion, Osborne St., 1963
Dominion, Confusion Corner, 1963
Dominion, Confusion Corner, 1971
Dominion, Kildonan Place, 1980s
Dominion and Kmart, Crestview Centre, 1960s
Dominion, St. Mary's & Marion, 1964
Dominion, Dominion Centre, Goulet St., 1967
Dominion, 1650 Main, 1960s (take 2)
Dominion, 1650 Main, 1970
Loblaws, Polo Park, 1960
Loblaws, Northdale Centre, 1960s
Loblaws and Clark's, Panet & Narin, 1960s
SuperValu and Real Canadian Superstore locations, 1987. They might as well have "Loblaws" written all over them.
Payfair, uncertain location, 1974
Safeway, Regent Ave., Transcona, 1955. This was one of the chain's original 1930s-era mid-block stores, bearing the identical architecture that nigh every 1930s new-build Safeway in Canada had.
Safeway, 893 Portage, 1929
Safeway, St. Mary & St. Anne's, 1950
Safeway pylon, Portage and Burnell, 1980s. If I ever make it to Winnipeg, this is on my short list of must-photograph locations.
Safeway and Woolco, Crossroads Shopping Centre, 1970s
Safeway, Grant Park, 1970
Safeway, Grant Park, 1971
Safeway, Grant Park, 1990s
Safeway, River Ave., Osborne Village, 1980s
Safeway marina, Wall & Ellice, 2008. Shortly before closure, sigh.
Safeway marina, Westwood Centre, 1964
Safeway, Richmond Plaza Mall, Pembina, 1974
Safeway sign and Zellers, Westwood Village, Portage Ave., 1960s

and, just for fun:
Safeway Santa Claus Parade float, 1970s
"The pale pastels which have been featured in most food stores during the past 20 years are no longer in tune with the mood of the 1970s."
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Re: Updated location list: Winnipeg through 1975

Post by Steve Landry »

That "Payfair" looks very interesting!

;-)
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Re: Updated location list: Winnipeg through 1975

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Winnipeg Marina Selfie.jpg
Hello! Back from a Labour Day's weekend in Winnipeg. I travelled to the city hoping to find some traces of Safeway's past...and the city had them in spades.

This is the Safeway marina store at 594 Mountain Avenue...quite possibly the best-looking supermarket in the entire city. It is the only one of Winnipeg's marinas that is still in operation with an intact facade.
"The pale pastels which have been featured in most food stores during the past 20 years are no longer in tune with the mood of the 1970s."
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Re: Updated location list: Winnipeg through 1975

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1930s_1950s_Safeways.jpg
Yet another phenomenal sight in Winnipeg: An early 1950s Safeway pylon store (left), standing next door to the 1930s Safeway it replaced! This is on 893-905 Portage Avenue.

Almost all of Safeway's newly-built stores from the late 1920s and 1930s in western Canada had this exact design: A squat one-story storefront with Spanish tile edging and peaked towers over trefoil and shield details. There must have been close to a dozen of these buildings in Winnipeg alone.

The pylon store, meanwhile, is the exact same one pictured in the 1980s link above. And it's still selling groceries (under auspices of AM Foodfare, a local Winnipeg chain) today!
"The pale pastels which have been featured in most food stores during the past 20 years are no longer in tune with the mood of the 1970s."
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Re: Updated location list: Winnipeg through 1975

Post by Andrew T. »

One more photo before I put the brakes on this vacation picture show:
FirstSWY.jpg
This is 110 Sherbrook St. in Winnipeg. If I'm not mistaken, this building is the first Safeway store in Canada.

Winnipeg was almost certainly Safeway's first Canadian market, and the company was headquartered there. Christian Cassidy notes that the company's first stores opened in a wave of eight on 18 October 1929. Although all these locations were "first," only one of them would have been listed first in the company's ledgers...and the Manitoba Historical Society notes that this store was number 501, the lowest number in the division. So there you go!
"The pale pastels which have been featured in most food stores during the past 20 years are no longer in tune with the mood of the 1970s."
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Re: Updated location list: Winnipeg through 1975

Post by Andrew T. »

*sigh* I resolved that I'd take a break from this thread, but I'm eating my words because I found a massive lead that I had to share. The entire archive of the Winnipeg Tribune from 1890 to 1980 is freely accessible online from University of Manitoba Libraries. I've been using the archive to double-check on store opening dates, which has led me down a rabbit hole of other discoveries: That all the Safeway Marinas with horizontal "wings" were built before the Marinas with upturned "wings," for example.
Mountain_Marina.jpg
The archive also enabled me to find this amazing picture: It's the Safeway upthread at 594 Mountain Avenue, as it looked right after its opening in February 1962. It was taken from the exact same angle as my selfie portrait! (The sharp-eyed might also notice that the store was originally built without winter vestibules with separate inner and outer doors. No doubt they fixed that in a hurry!)
"The pale pastels which have been featured in most food stores during the past 20 years are no longer in tune with the mood of the 1970s."
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Re: Updated location list: Winnipeg through 1975

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This is all great stuff and it’s making me want to visit Winnipeg!
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Re: Updated location list: Winnipeg through 1975

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I've greatly expanded the Safeway section on my own (completely static, HTTP-only, stuck-in-the-mud, mobile-be-damned) website with dozens of new (grainy, low-resolution, unhotlinkable) images from my travels to the River City. (Yes, I've been feeling very cranky about technology.)

If you do ever go to Winnipeg, the locations of the local AM Food Fare chain are well worth checking out: Many of them are older Safeway locations, including an original 1929 store! Portage Avenue, Corydon Avenue, and St. Mary's Road are great conduits of retail history and commercial development. There are also some great areas just west of downtown that are positively brimming with early chain stores.
"The pale pastels which have been featured in most food stores during the past 20 years are no longer in tune with the mood of the 1970s."
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Re: Updated location list: Winnipeg through 1975

Post by TheStranger »

Just saw your Winnipeg page (I remember some of those locations from 13-14 years ago like Ellice Avenue) and love the then/now shots quite a bit!

Seeing Sobey's convert some of those to their other brand though makes me wonder how many will still remain as Safeway stores in the coming decade. As historically incongruent as it is to see the post-2004 logo and text on Marina structures, I do view that as a sign of the chain's continued investment in those sites (as is the case for the three Marina-design stores in San Francisco that are still in operation since the 2009 demolition/rebuild of the 7th/Cabrillo mini Marina location).
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Re: Updated location list: Winnipeg through 1975

Post by Andrew T. »

Thanks for the feedback!

Fresh Co. is basically Sobeys' slavish carbon copy of Loblaws' No Frills concept. No Frills has unquestionably been a Good Thing for supermarket preservation (there are numerous '50s-'70s Loblaws stores, including several in Winnipeg, that survive in operation as No Frills decades after they ceased being viable under Loblaws' eponymous banner), and I have every reason to expect that some Safeway Marinas will live out long afterlives under the Fresh Co. name.

As far as names go, I wouldn't be surprised if Sobeys eliminated the Safeway brand entirely at some point. Sobeys-branded stores already co-exist throughout most of Safeway's Canadian trade area, and the company has spent years engaging in co-branded "Sobeys and Safeway" advertising.
"The pale pastels which have been featured in most food stores during the past 20 years are no longer in tune with the mood of the 1970s."
Andrew Turnbull
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