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Sorry for the long lapse in content around these parts. My personal life has been less than optimal the past few months (long story) and I’ve also been very preoccupied with work.
Anyway, I’m happy to present the following for your amusement today:
Tomorrow (if my enthusiasm holds out), I’ll be posting location spreadsheets and photo galleries for Pittsburgh and Columbia SC.
And soon, I really will be completing the updated history of Safeway that I started a few months back.
Behold the groovy, modern Mayfair Market at LA’s Century City, circa 1968. These photos come from a Progressive Grocer study of new stores published that year. This one is partcularly interesting because it was part of a high-rise office and residential complex, which made it somewhat ahead of its time in those days. Note the interesting column treatment below. I have no idea where in the complex this store was located, nor what is there now.
Discuss of this store in the Groceteria Message Board
Dominick’s, 3333 Central Street, Evanston IL. From Progressive Grocer’s Outstanding New Super Markets, 1969.
This groovy Dominick’s (just look at that streetlight) was featured as one of Progressive Grocer’s best new supermarkets of 1969 in a great book I found at the UNC library last week. I’ll be adding lots more stuff from this book (as well as interior photos from this store) soon. For those who care about such things, this location is now a CVS Pharmacy, and Google’s Street View gives a pretty good current photo from almost the same angle, with a little manipulation:
The book also features interiors and exteriors from the Century City Mayfair Market in Los Angeles, the Glendale CA Crawford’s Market, a Loray store in San Leandro CA, a Fazio’s in Ohio, a Straub’s in St. Louis, and a Lund’s in Minnesota, among others. More to come.
I also came across Shopping at Giant Foods: Chinese American Supermarkets in Northern California
, which gives a great history of chains in the Sacramento and Stockton areas, including Farmers, Centromart, Jumbo, and more. I’ll be adding some of that information to the appropriate sections soon as well.
The lovely Southern California store pictured above is where the Boyle family, of Wait Till Your Father Gets Home, shopped. This overhead shot was from 1972; I think it was taken from the third floor of a building across the street. I’m not sure of the exact location (the Boyles lived on Elm Street at the time) but I imagine it’s been torn down by now anyway.
Unless, of course, Jons took it over and simply replaced the “D” with a “J”, similar to what they’ve done with so many former Vons locations around Los Angeles.
After all these years, we finally know that Opus shops at Vons, thus placing Bloom County somewhere in Southern California. I’d always assumed it was in the midwest, but what do I know?
For those who care, I’ve posted the first part of my A&P update, featuring a more complete history and more photos, including some amazing color shots of 1960 store openings in Southern California.
There are more photos, etc. to come over the next day or two.
Just to make an otherwise unremarkable Sunday a bit brighter, I received about 25 color photos of 1960-era A&P stores, many of them from the forgotten Southern California branch of the chain, from a gentleman whose grandfather took them while working for the company…
They’re really amazing shots, interiors and exteriors in quite stunning color. I’ll be adding bigger versions when I do my revamp of the A&P and Colonial sections, which are my next two projects after the Charlotte section is done…
And yes, I really do plan to have that Charlotte section done soon. I got a little sidetracked by a personal matter recently, but it’s on the way. I promise…
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…
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:
