Tag: San Francisco

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I’m testing a new way of generating the location lists on the site using Google Sheets. The biggest benefits are that this approach should be more tablet- and mobile-friendly, and also will make it easier for me to have the most updated data I have on the site without having to do manual updates. It will also allow users to download the spreadsheets or add them to your own Google Drive.

I’m also in the process of updating the rest of the location lists so they generate automatic links to a current site view in Google Maps.

I started with San Francisco as a test. Let me know what you think in the comments. Thanks!

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More precisely, happy birthday to Groceteria.com, which was born fifteen years ago today as a post on another site. It was part of some of the earliest research that eventually became Groceteria.com. The post noted that this storefront on Irving Street in San Francisco was originally one of the earlier Safeway stores in the city and also mentioned that there had been Piggly Wiggly stores in San Francisco. Further, it suggested that there would be more to come on this subject.

Back in 1999, there was very little information online about the history of supermarkets in the US and Canada. To say that interest has grown would be an understatement. I like to think this site had some part in all that. Things have been a little less active here the past few years due to work pressures and a lot of family issues for me, but I’ve been working on things a lot more lately, adding features and content, and I hope there will be ever more new stuff in the coming months.

Thanks for stopping by.

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021508-safeway
228 East Seventh Street SE, Washington DC (1987, Washington Post).

Opened in 1940, this Safeway store at 228 Seventh Street SE in Washington DC managed to hang on until 1986. It was still profitable until the end; the need for expensive renovations was cited as the reason for its closing. The surrounding neighborhood was not happy about the closing and the city council tried unsuccessfully to delay it through legislation.

It’s a classic 1940s store, modernized probably in the mid 1960s. The Noe Valley store in San Francisco, closed in the mid 1970s and pictured below, was probably a fairly similar renovation. I’d love to have seen the interiors of these stores. It’s amazing they lasted as long as they did.

The SF location, by the way, managed to hang on for another fifteen years as a Bell Market after Safeway moved out. It’s now an unrecognizable Walgreens. I don’t know the fate of the DC store.

021508-safeway-2
1333 Castro Street, San Francisco (1973, The Streets of San Francisco).