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…

Harris Teeter, Centrai Avenue, Charlotte NC. Grand opening.

Some updates to the Charlotte section, including a new location spreadsheet via Google Sheets and updates to the history pages to reflect some corrections and updates to the original article.

Also in the works;

  • I’m building a Nashville location list and page.
  • I’m working on a new photo platform, which is why I have not uploaded new photos in a while.
  • Once again, for updates as I travel and other random tidbits, be sure to follow @GroceteriaWeb on Twitter.

 

Safeway, Abilene TX, 1960

 

Yes, I know it’s been a year. And yes, I know that I haven’t been answering email and that there have been problems with the Message Board. I have had personal issues and other things that have kept me extremely busy and I apologize.

But here are lots of new updates:

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).

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So is that vaguely phallic or what?

The ad is from 1968, again courtesy Pat Richardson (whose site you really should visit). These are actually fairly sophisticated image ads for a smallish regional chain in late 1960s North Carolina, although some might question the “Chinese lady” image of the second ad.

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I’ve been incredibly busy with school and work the past few weeks, so the updates have been slow. But it seems I won’t be taking any classes this summer, so that should be good news for the site, if not for my anticipated graduation date.

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Winn-Dixie, 3830 East Independence Boulevard, Charlotte. Photo courtesy Pat Richardson.

The Winn-Dixie at Charlotte‘s Amity Gardens Shopping Center opened in November of 1958, right in the middle of the most thriving retail strip in the city. The center also included Woolworth’s and a Barclay Cafeteria. By 1961, it also included Charlotte’s first (and only) branch of Clark’s, an early “supercenter” with both general merchandise and groceries.

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Amity Gardens Shopping Center, 2007.

By the 1980s, the center was already in significant decline, and the conversion of Independence Boulevard into a freeway sealed the fate not only of Amity Gardens, but of the entire retail strip from downtown to Albemarle Road. The old center is still standing today, more or less completely abandoned. Plans to demolish it and construct a Wal-Mart Supercenter are on hold. The years have not been kind to this once booming area.

More:

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From an anniversary brochure produced by Bruno’s stores sometime around 1989, the photo above shows one of the original American Fare stores, probably the Stone Mountain Parkway store in Atlanta. American Fare was an experimental joint venture between Bruno’s Supermarkets and Kmart, and was based on the European concept of a hypermarché, the fusion of a discount department store with a supermarket.

The first of these stores opened in Atlanta in early 1989, while the second (now abandoned, pictured below) made its debut in Charlotte later the same year. A third location opened in Jackson MS a few years later. These stores marked a return for Kmart to the business of grocery retailing after more than a decade (the company had included leased grocery departments in many of its 1960s and 1970s locations) and served as something of a trial run for the later Super Kmart stores. American Fare, however, was originally a somewhat more upscale format than Super Kmart, with a more distinctive interior design scheme, not to mention brand name apparel its successor would eliminate in favor of Kmart’s standard offerings.

Bruno’s eventually sold its interest in the three American Fare locations, which were then rolled into the Super Kmart operation. The American Fare name lived on for several years afterward as Kmart’s house brand for grocery and household items.

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I’ve uploaded the first chunk of my much-expanded look at the North Carolina Triad. Even though the entire new photo gallery has not been added, there’s till a lot to see. The revamped Greensboro section features about three times as much information, plus additional vintage photos. It’s complete through the 1970s, and may even beat last year’s Charlotte section for sheer volume of research.

Winston-Salem and High Point are coming soon.