Category: Interesting Stores

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I visited Charlotte this afternoon because I needed a quick change of scenery and I had some errands I could just as easily do there.

While driving around, I snapped a photo of this former A&P on Freedom Drive, which I often do when I’m in the area:

I came home and got started looking at some old video from 1999.. It turns out I was also in Charlotte exactly twenty years ago today (on a visit home from San Francisco, where I lived at the time) and just happened to shoot video of this same former A&P for what was then the very new Groceteria.com:

So there you have it: the oldest and newest pictures I have of the former A&P on Freedom Drive, coincidentally shot exactly twenty years apart to the day.

I’m not sure when the tree burst forth from the asphalt…

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Just returned from a snowy weekend in New Jersey, with side trips to Philadelphia and (drum roll, please) Wilmington, Delaware? Why the drum roll? Because I now have the data in hand to complete Groceteria’s 50th state, which I promised to do by the site’s 20th anniversary this summer. That’s coming soon, but for now, here are some recent additions and updates:

The store above is a still-standing Food Fair on Brunswick Avenue in Trenton NJ. There’s another one that’s even better here.

Also, I’ll be visiting the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne next month and will be filling in a lot of holes using their massive collection of print city directories from around the country. That trip will also take me to Detroit, Toledo, and possibly Lansing and Milwaukee. More soon.

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The Kroger location at 700 Spinning Road near Dayton, Ohio, apparently opened in 1967 as part of a small shopping center. Sometime in the 1980s, it was remodeled into a smaller adaptation of the “Greenhouse” style stores Kroger was opening throughout the chain. This decor package featured curving walls and super-graphics using the Bauhaus font. In most stores. The signage colors varied by department, but this is not the case in the Dayton store,. Based on the colors currently used, I suspect the signs may have been repainted during the “Grid” decor years of the 1990s. Otherwise, it is a pretty faithful abbreviated version of the “Greenhouse” model, and it still seems to be doing a pretty brisk business.

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Northern and Orman Avenues, Pueblo, Colorado.

As far as I can tell, the top right structure was the original early-1950s “pylon” Safeway. Sometime around 1965-1966, the footprint was dramatically enlarged to create a Safeway/Super S combo. The “scalloped” roof (lower right) was added to the old Safeway to create the Super S drug store and a new Marina-style Safeway was built to the left. The whole shebang closed in the mid-1980s.

The latest updates:

There will probably be more, as this is a holiday weekend in the US and I have no life.

By the way, if you’re interested in contributing content, please see my methodology page. There’s even a handy spreadsheet template.

All the cool kids are doing it.

OK, only a couple of the cool kids are doing it. But that could change…

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This one was just an extra cool find. It was quite obviously built as an A&P, probably in the 1940s. You can even make out the labelscar on the parking lot signs if you’re there in person. It’s located on Taylor Boulevard in Louisville, right across from Churchill Downs. From the shape of the sign, I would guess it may have been an A&P at least until they switched to the pill-shaped logo in the 1970s. And what’s really cool is that it’s still a pretty popular spot and it’s still selling groceries with very few modifications in its more recent incarnation as the Pic Pac IGA.

I love finding stores like this.

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Courtesy of the Greensboro Historical Museum. Used by permission.

 

I’ve written about this store and how important it was to me before.

Most of you probably do not know that in my other life, I am an academic librarian whose job primarily involves supervising the digitization and online presentation of archival material. The job and the hobby intersect from time to time and this is one of those cases. These photos are part of a huge grant-funded project we recently unveiled on the history of Greensboro from Reconstruction to World War II. They’re great (and a rare find) because they show the pristine interior of this store at its grand opening. They come from the papers of Jim Sifford, who was apparently an A&P regional manager in the area. I’ll add more later.

Another great photo surfaced as well, but you’ve seen that one before.

 

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This is a beautiful  Toronto area store that has apparently been nominated as a historic property. Located at Parkway Mall in suburban Scarborough, the store opened in 1958 as a Grand Union, and has since operated as Steinberg’s, Miracle Food Mart, Dominion, and now Metro.

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This one’s an interesting specimen. It obviously dates from the late 1950s or early 1960s, and was given some sort of “superstore” retrofit in the 1970s. But the original sign stayed, and then the whole building was eventually painted a nice, bland beige. The interior is the slightly cheesy teal “millenium” package that every Kroger in West Virginia seems to have. I think the layout has been altered from the original as well.

It amazes me how many of these smaller and older stores are still operating in parts of West Virginia and Ohio. I’m travelling I-77, I-79, and US 19 a lot these days, since I’m sort of living in Pittsburgh part time now, and I’m seeing a lot of these as I try to vary my commutes between Winston-Salem and da ‘Burgh. I may be posting a few more examples this week.