Merry Christmas!

It’s Christmastime 1966, and here’s one more look at the Grand Union complex in East Paterson, New Jersey’s Elmwood Shopping Center. A cold night, to be sure, but the spirit of Christmas in the air and the glow of neon help to warm things up. The Grand Way store is in place now, welcoming shoppers for its first Christmas season. A tall, elegant Christmas tree stands near the store’s entrance.I

Safeway's Season's Greetings

An 80-foot tall sequoia becomes a majestic Christmas tree in this 1965 Lake Oswego, Oregon view. Safeway endeared itself to the local community by sparing the tree when constructing their new marina-style store. When they subsequently sprung for annual lighting of the tree and appearances by Santa Claus, who would have shopped anywhere else?Thanks to "Sputnikmoss" of the Portland Area

Sears - Wish Book Wonderland

Getting super close to Christmas, so let’s take a very quick look at Sears, a veritable Warehouse of Christmas Dreams for generations of Americans. This particular store was located at the Logan Square shopping center in Norristown, Pennsylvania, not far from Philly. It was brand new and all decked out for Christmas at the time this photo was taken in 1966. The building still stands (with the

Elmwood Shopping Center, 1952

Here’s an aerial view, from 1952, of the Elmwood Shopping Center - home of Grand Union’ s headquarters and flagship store. The second largest retail tenant in the center was Neisner’s, a major variety store chain at the time, and probably the only one who didn’t have a set of initials before its name, unlike its competitors – F.W. Woolworth, W.T. Grant, S.S. Kresge, J.J. Newberry, G.C. Murphy…The

On Their Toes at the Grand Union

Without a doubt, the employees of this particular Grand Union were “on their toes” on a regular basis, due in no small measure to the fact that Grand Union’s corporate honchos held court directly above their store. The photos above, from 1952, show the company’s brand-spanking new corporate offices which opened in November 1951 (the store opened the following April) in the Elmwood Shopping

Grand Union, Independent Innovator

Grand Union held its own through the Depression years and made slow but steady progress through World War II. By the war’s end, however, the company faced a new challenge, perhaps less from external forces than from a growing friction between company president J. Spencer Weed and Lansing P. Shield, vice-president and number two man in the company. Weed was extremely conservative in his approach,

Tales of the Grand Union

A familiar face to grocery shoppers throughout the Northeast states (and even more so to those Northeasterners who vacationed in Florida), the late, great Grand Union Company also held the distinction of being one of America’s oldest grocery chains, second only to The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company.The company was founded in Scranton, PA in 1872 (thirteen years after A&P) by Cyrus D.

An Early Target, 1966

The hard Northern winter shows on the faces of these Target shoppers in this 1966 photo. The Target story began in 1962 when the Dayton Company, a venerable 60-year old Minneapolis-based department store chain, decided to capitalize on the discounting trend by setting up its own discount division. At the time, the company had five full line Dayton’s department stores in Minnesota, including their

New Looks for 7-Eleven in '67

The first four of these photos date from 1967, by which time 7-Eleven was beginning to vary their store appearance. The open front design was beginning to be phased out, and many of the existing open front stores underwent renovation to a more conventional window and door arrangement. This was ostensibly to allow the efficient use of newly-added air-conditioning units, but one could assume it

Sixties, Slurpees and the Sev

The 1960’s saw two major developments in the history of 7-Eleven and its parent, the Southland Corporation. The first was a continuation of the company’s rapid geographical expansion, which would result in 7-Eleven becoming a virtual nationwide presence by the end of the decade. The second was the 1967 introduction of the company’s signature product, the Slurpee.In March 1964, Southland made what

7-Eleven - How Conveeenient

Today, pulling up to a gas station that does not have a convenience store attached is a very rare thing indeed. At virtually any gas station, be it a mom-and-pop operation, a small regional or citywide chain or a major chain that may or may not be oil company owned, the convenience store is an expected part of the deal. The “service stations” with their auto service bays and tow trucks parked

The Foods of Chicago!

Several weeks back I was contacted by members of the production team at WTTW, Chicago’s PBS affiliate, who had seen a post I did early on about Dominick’s Finer Foods, a major Chicago grocery chain with a rich ethnic history. They contacted me with regard to a new special they’ve produced called “Foods of Chicago: A Delicious History”, which will be premiering this coming Tuesday, November 27,

Korvette's Spartan Existence

I hope that you’ve had a Happy Thanksgiving! Maybe you had a chance to watch the Macy’s parade or the broadcast of "Miracle on 34th Street" that followed. The pictures above are of Korvette’s 34th Street store which opened in 1967 in New York City’s famed Herald Square, right next door to Macy’s famous flagship. Two years earlier, Korvette had announced its intention to take over the Saks-34th

The Korvette Supermarkets

As mentioned previously, one of the key initiatives undertaken by the larger supermarket chains in the late 50’s/early 60’s was to expand into the area of non-food, general merchandise offerings. The reverse was true with a number of discount chains as well, including E.J. Korvette, the nation’s hottest and most successful discount store chain at the time. Korvette went about it a bit

Korvette Summer

Here are a few more shots from 1962 -65, near the end of Korvette’s golden years. In 1963 Korvette planted its flag for the first time outside of the East Coast market, opening four stores in Chicagoland. The first two, located in Oak Lawn at 87th and Cicero and in Elmhurst at Route 83 (Elmhurst Rd) and St. Charles Rd opened on April 29. Two more stores would open before the end of the year,

Breakfast at Korvettes

In 1962, Korvette opened a store that not only gained the company national publicity but proved to be hugely profitable in its own right, and also helped cement the direction of a major part of Korvette’s merchandising going forward. I’m referring to the famous eight-floor “Fifth Avenue Korvettes”, which opened on July 24, 1962 at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 47th Street in the heart of

E.J. Korvette - The Dawn of Discounting

In the history of American retailing, The E.J. Korvette Story is a fairly brief chapter. This brevity does not do justice to the tremendous, arguably unparalleled influence the company and its visionary founder, Eugene Ferkauf, wielded during its halcyon years – the mid-fifties through the early nineteen-sixties. E. J. Korvette, Inc. was founded by Brooklyn-born Eugene Ferkauf in May 1948 with a

Food Fair's Philly Trifecta - 1966

On the same day in April 1966, Food Fair opened three stores in greater Philadelphia of this exact prototype, shown first in an artist’s rendering, than in a photo of the real thing (or one of the three real things, I guess). Look at it – an ordinary supermarket, transformed into something pretty special with the addition of the superb, Calder-esque metalwork out front. Food Fair as a company was

The Fields of Food Fair

As mentioned before, in the later fifties and early sixties, many successful supermarket chains eagerly sought to branch out into non-food discount retail. There were a number of reasons for this, including the desire to leverage a management and merchandising approach that had already proven successful in foods. Another reason was that by this time, many of the larger chains were developing

Food Fair's Finest Hours

A fantastic night view of a Food Fair supermarket, circa 1960, when the company cracked the ¾ of a billion dollar mark in sales and had more than 400 stores. To me, this store shines for a number of reasons, including the superb signage and metalwork and the “open ‘til” digital clock. All were hallmarks of Food Fair in the late fifties and sixties (in prior years the stores featured a neon clock

The Food Fair Phenomenon

For much of the 20th century, one of America’s most prominent supermarket chains was Philadelphia-based Food Fair Stores, Inc. A powerhouse in their primary Eastern Seaboard markets - Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania, Eastern New York, Northern New Jersey and Baltimore, the Food Fair empire would become a significant market factor in Florida and eventually extend as far away as

Vornado to the West

The old adage “Go West, young man” has applied for generations not only to people but to businesses as well. For many retail chains, once they achieved a measure of success in their home markets, becoming a coast-to-coast operation became their burning goal. Oftentimes, as history has shown time and time again, this has proven to be extremely difficult to achieve. By the mid 1960’s the Two Guys

Two Guys Discount Stores '64 edition

The pictures above are exterior views from 1964, when Two Guys was certainly in the top echelon of America’s fastest growing discount department stores. The first two photos are of the chain’s standard 135,000 square foot prototype, the first being the Cherry Hill, New Jersey store in the Camden County Plaza shopping center (as mentioned in the previous post), the second a new store in Dover, New

Two Guys, Many Girls, No Pizza Place

Here are some more photos of Two Guys Department Stores from the early 1960’s, the era in which the chain experienced its most impressive growth. The first photo, from 1962, shows a great-looking New Jersey store exterior and sign. The full parking lot is a pretty good indicator that business must have been robust. The second through fifth photos show department views from various Two Guys

A Tale of Two Guys

A familiar sight in Eastern Seaboard cities from the 1950’s through the very early eighties, the Two Guys discount store chain was founded in Harrison, New Jersey by a pair of brothers, Herbert and Sidney Hubschman, with a single 600 square foot store in 1946. The brothers soon established a reputation for selling radios, televisions and household appliances at razor-thin margins, much to the

An Ideal Selection

Here’s a nice display of Acme Markets products, circa 1965/6 - an era when many supermarkets were just beginning to recognize the revenue potential of house brands and thus began sprucing them up to maximize sales. The “eye” logo on the packaging of some of these items preceded the stores’ new image (as featured in the previous post) by a couple of years. I notice that some of the products are

Acme's Swingin' Sixties Look

Acme’s stores of the nineteen-sixties could scarcely have looked more different from those of the previous decade. In 1960, a new design was implemented that featured a peaked roof with a full façade of glass. The “Acme” script was discarded in favor of a block-lettered logo at first. After a year or so, a new Acme logo (that to me, at least, still looks modern) with a unique “eye” shape was

The Men of Acme, 1956

Authoritative 1950's-style announcer voice: "Remember this, folks! When better markets are built, Acme Men will build them! Just look at these Acme Men...Men of foresight...Men of ingenuity...Men of zeal!"*Zeal notwithstanding, Acme’s late 1950’s stores were fairly plain as a rule, with the only standout aspect being the “Acme Markets” logo (which by this time had evolved into a cool automobile

Acme Markets Nighthawks, Early 1950's

Nice 1954 artist's rendering of an Acme Market, neon blazing at night. Kind of reminiscent of Edward Hopper’s famous painting “Nighthawks”, isn’t it? I mean, except for the setting being a grocery store instead of a café…and the location probably a shopping center instead of a dimly lit downtown street…and a larger group depicted instead of three brooding, lonely patrons and a soda jerk…Ok, let’s

Acme - Clean, Bright, Sparkling White

A paraphrase based on a Jewel Tea ad, but one that certainly applies here. Like its future stablemate, Acme Markets of the 40’s and early 50’s featured gleaming white porcelain facades. For the most part, the stores displayed the “Acme script” signage shown here, rendering a great iconic look that was used heavily in Acme newspaper ads. Most Acmes, like nearly all grocery stores of the era,

The Marina Safeway at Night, 1968

A beautiful dusk view of what is undoubtedly the most famous individual grocery store location in the country, if not the world. This is, of course, the Marina Safeway – San Francisco Landmark, Meeting Place Extraordinaire (having duly earned the nickname “Dateway”), and the Proud Standard of Safeway Stores, Incorporated. This store, still going strong, is located at 15 Marina Boulevard, San

Safeway Sixties Style

Through the 1960’s, Safeway continued to pursue Chairman Robert Magowan’s oft-expressed objective of maintaining an aggressive store building and modernization program. During this period, usually 60 percent or more of Safeway’s stores were under ten years old - no mean achievement for a chain of that size. The comparatively tiny, white-painted Safeway stores of the 30’s and 40’s were an

Checkout Time

In this idyllic circa 1968 scene, a family is ready to head for home with a fine haul of Safeway-branded merchandise. The young lad seems to be playing a little tug of war with the cashier, who doesn't appear to be amused...or maybe she was about to break out in a big smile. The store decor is late 60's state-of-the-art for Safeway.

Safeway's Windmill?

This photo (from 1963, location unknown) is intriguing to me for a couple of reasons – first, because it shows the “March of Progress” – a classic 50’s Safeway about to realize its destiny as a parking lot for the brand-new, gleaming Safeway/Super S store seen under construction in the background. On the new store, the plastic insert for the round, red “S” logo isn’t even installed yet!Secondly,

Safeway's Super S Story

In the early 1960’s, several leading supermarket chains began a concerted effort to augment their traditionally razor-thin grocery margins by greatly increasing their offering of non-food items. Typically, this category included outdoor accessories, sporting goods, cameras, small appliances, basic clothing and a host of other items, which were usually marked-up at more than twice the rate of food

Safeway Fifties Style

The three photos above are of new Safeway stores opened in 1955, a very significant year in Safeway's 40-year long (at that point) history. In October 1955, longtime Safeway President Lingan A. Warren stepped down. Warren, as a Time magazine article put it, “built Safeway from nothing” during his 21 years at the chain’s helm. By the mid-50’s, however, despite store growth that would be impressive

Safeway's Wonderful World of Color

“Color does brighten things up, doesn’t it?” Walt Disney asked the television audience in the opening minutes of his first Color TV broadcast in 1961. Well, it was true for Disney’s “Wonderful World of Color”, and it was also true for Safeway and many other leading supermarket chains throughout the 1950’s and into the early 60’s. Pastel colors were used to great effect in this 1953 Portland,

...And Don't Forget The Coffee!

Gotta have that flavor lift... Here's another 1945 photo, this one featuring a gentle reminder outside a San Francisco Safeway. Edwards was Safeway's longtime house brand. The billboard looks bigger than the store itself!

Safeway Upgraded

It would be understandable to assume that civic design approval for retail stores is a fairly recent thing – a phenomenon of the past 25 to 30 years only, or perhaps dating as far back as the mid-60’s, when Lady Bird Johnson’s “Keep America Beautiful” campaign ushered in a new, austere (shudder) era of retail architecture.The interesting fact is that there are examples of appearance zoning that

White Front - Under the Familiar Arch

All right folks, time to grab your BankAmericard, Master Charge or just good old fashioned cash as we take a brief trip to a great discount store of the past. Since we’ve been discussing West Coast supermarket chains lately and I had yet to cover a single actual discount chain at all (save the Lucky variants from the last post), this is a good place to start – with the long gone White Front

The Three Faces of Lucky

In 1959, Lucky began to expand upon their basic 20,000 square foot grocery store footprint with the opening of the first “Lucky Discount Center”, a new concept which added a variety of non-food items – clothing, small appliances, outdoor products and more in combination with their regular supermarket departments. Many of the Discount Centers featured liquor and pharmacy departments as well

Late Fifties Lucky

By the late 1950's, Lucky had moved away from the use of gigantic pylons and the classic Loewy look and began to employ a wide variety of interesting designs, including this great "zig-zag" from Livermore, California in 1959. The "three squares" theme, however, continued to appear from time to time in modified form. Thanks to Scott of the great BIGMallRat site for identifying the location of this

Lucky Stores 1950's - Three Squares

I've often wondered if the famed 65-foot tall Lucky Stores pylons, designed by the great Raymond Loewy, were meant to signify "three square meals a day". The materials for subject meals, of course, were available at everyday low prices from your friendly neighbor - the local Lucky supermarket. Oh, well. Someone please fill us in if you know the story.Raymond Loewy was arguably the preeminent

Every Day's A Special Day

One more look at Thriftimart for now, this time a set of great interior views. These 1964 photos are from a brand new Thriftimart, which was located at 4030 Centinela Avenue in Culver City, California. I love the shield above the liquor department. Must have focus-grouped yellow tones for this one.

Thriftimart Class of '63

By the early 1960's, some new Thriftimarts featured toned-down "T's", possibly owing to zoning or cost reasons. Even so, the stores provided very nice examples of mid-century modern supermarket design, as these photos of new units from 1963 attest. The first photo is of a Santa Ana store (1308 Edinger Street), the second is from 1117 Los Angeles Ave., Simi Valley.

Thriftimart - The Tall T

Burning bright above the L.A. Basin at dusk were the red, 40-foot tall "T's" - the iconic logo of the late, great Thriftimart supermarket chain. A fondly-remembered sight of Angelenos (and selected San Diegans and Vegas-ites), these gigantic signs emerged on the local landscape through the 50's and 60's.The company that would eventually be named Thriftimart, Inc. was created in 1930 when a group

Alpha Beta - Keepin' It Local

One of the great features of Alpha Beta supermarkets from the early 50's through the 70's was the company's practice of showing the town's name on the face of the local stores. If there were multiple Alpha Beta markets in the same town, the name would often reflect the area of town, street or shopping center in which the store was located. It's suprising to me that over the years, no other retail

Alpha Beta - The Early Acme Years

In the early 1960’s, a number of interesting trends took hold in the grocery industry. First, the progression (which began in the 1940’s) towards ever larger footprints for new stores continued at an intensified pace. Most new stores built in the early sixties were at least 15,000 square feet, with many upwards of 20 or even 30,000. Secondly, supermarket chains began to diversify into new

A Gala Premiere - Studio City 1963

Here is the Grand Opening ad for the Studio City Market Basket store featured in the previous post. This ad appeared in the Pasadena Star-News on January 16, 1963. One of the interesting aspects of "Grand Opening" ads from these years is that they often featured photos or line drawings of the actual store in question. The line drawing in this case is a fairly accurate representation.

Market Basket Mayhem!!

Highly recommended viewing for fans of old supermarkets is the 1964 Jerry Lewis film “The Disorderly Orderly”. This film features le Jerry in typical fine form, wreaking havoc as he earnestly performs the duties of an entry-level job, this particular one being an orderly in a sanitarium. Our family digs this film, even though my wife is only 1/8th French!The climactic scene features Jerry and

Albertsons - At Your Service

Here's a 1966 photo showing an Albertsons store crew - an eager bunch, poised and ready to deliver a superior customer experience. The woman to the far left does appear to be somewhat anxious - perhaps she was new on the job. In the background is an archetypal "marina-style" Albertsons, as referred to in an earlier post.By this time, Albertsons' market presence had grown to cover nine western

Albertsons - Before and After

This Albertsons store, located in Lewiston, Idaho, opened in 1950 and sported architecture typical of many supermarkets of the era. In 1962, the store was expanded and remodeled in order to accomodate increased business and a growing selection of non-food items. The original store's arch-trussed roof (and a portion of the original facade) is still clearly visible behind the new facade. The "

Their Own Private Idaho

Long before Albertsons became a national name in grocery retailing, it was a powerhouse in the Pacific Northwest. The history of Albertsons started in Boise, Idaho in 1939 when former Safeway manager Joe Albertson formed a partnership with L.S. Skaggs (of Safeway founding family fame) and accountant Tom Cuthbert. Though the partnership would not last long, Albertson would build his company at a

Another Miami Publix

This photo from 1960, with "louvered" wings on the facade - a variation that's unique, to my knowledge. This store was/is located at 12850 Biscayne Blvd. in Miami.

Publix Panache

Publix, founded by George Jenkins in 1930, has been a supermarket trendsetter from its earliest years. Instead of a low-price approach, Jenkins emphasized high-style, opulent surroundings and a high level of service in the company’s stores. This strategy resulted in great success and fueled explosive growth for the chain through the second half of the 20th century. Publix was responsible for many

Winn-Dixie Produce Aisle, early 60's

Winn-Dixie started in Florida in 1925 with the purchase of a single Miami grocery store by William Davis. With Mr. Davis' passing several years later, control of the company passed to his four sons, who over the years would achieve legendary status in the annals of Southern business. By 1965, through a series of acquisitions and an aggressive building program, the chain covered the entire

Winn-Dixie - Here IT IS!

Thought I'd take a break from all the Chicago-based stuff and look at some chains from the Sunny South.For starters, here's a 1960 photo of a Winn-Dixie store featuring a nice subtle sign. What's not to love about this?

Jewel's Downstate Cousin

In 1957 Jewel acquired Eisner Food Stores, a 43-store chain of supermarkets with operations in downstate Illinois (primarily Champaign and Springfield) and Western Indiana. Within a few years, the Eisner stores began to closely resemble Jewel in both appearance and marketing strategies, although Eisner continued to be managed from Champaign.By the early 60's, the company realized that Eisner's

Jewel - The New Sheriff In Town

Jewel Tea Company, as it was known from its 1899 founding until the 1960's, was strictly a door-to-door home shopping service for the first thirty years of its existence. In 1932, the company purchased all of the Chicago area grocery stores from Loblaw Groceterias, firmly establishing Jewel in the retail store business as well. To use modern terms, we would call it "adding a brick-and-mortar

Dominick's '56

The other dominant traditional (i.e.: not Wal-Mart) supermarket chain in the Chicago area is, of course, Dominick's Finer Foods. Started by Dominick DiMatteo with a single store in 1918 and the addition of a second in the 1930's, the company consisted of a very small group of stores until the mid-1960's. As late as 1963, the chain had less than ten stores. The chain grew through acquisition in

Indy-National

National entered the Indianapolis market in a major way in September 1947 with the purchase of the 48-store Standard Grocery Company. This photo dates from 1953.

Serving You Better....Saving You More

Time for a tip of the hat to another major Chicago-based grocery chain - the late, great National Tea Company. Through the first half of the twentieth century, National was one of the largest Chicago-area chains, but gradually lost its market dominance to Jewel (and later to Dominick's) through the 50's and 60's. In its heyday, National was a force in many key Midwestern markets - Chicago,

Jewel's Stores Within Stores

Jewel was one of the early proponents of the "store within a store" concept. Starting around 1960, they implemented this new form of departmentalized shopping in all of their new stores and retrofitted the concept in their existing higher volume stores. The departments all had a theme designed to convey the feel of an individual storefront. The initial "stores within stores" were "Jewel Pastries"

Jewel Food Stores - Windy City Winter

This circa-1962 shot of a Jewel Store has "Chicago Winter" written all over it. By the following year, most new Jewel stores would feature an Osco Drug section (Osco Drug Co. was acquired by Jewel in 1961), but for a few years the company continued to build new stand-alone Jewels as well.

Welcome To The Past!

Our best memories often arise from life's simplest events - going with family or friends to the donut shop, to Denny's, to Baskin-Robbins and on and on. More often than not, the settings for these memories were in the most routine of places, including... the local grocery store. My name is Dave, and I grew up in the Chicago suburbs in the 1960's and 1970's. Quite a few of the suburbs, in fact, as