Groceteria.com

Fairview, Michigan, a small blinker-light town out in the middle of nowhere, used to have two IGA stores a block apart. The smaller of the two still operates as an "IGA Express," and the larger store is now called "Fairview Food Market." (Side note: What's with the "IGA Expr...

I think I'll be doing a list of this sort for Michigan.

Here's a really weird Kmart layout in Fenton, Michigan. I don't know what's weirder: the diagonal aisleways, or the fact that the Kmart Café is also a custard shop and has an external entrance. http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u68/TenPoundHammer/fenton_kmart.jpg?t=1256684921 I don't know what the ...

When did Rite Aid start building its ubiquitous standalone "corner" stores? From what I can tell, they seem to date from the late 80s at least. http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCP&cp=r80701806dgx&style=b&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0...

I've never really thought about it, but my local grocery store has one of the weirdest layouts ever. A couple aisles are diagonal, and there's even an aisle shaped like a lowercase "r". Mom told me that in the store's first year (it opened in May 1990), the aisles were all diagonal an very...

Not a grocery chain, but I do know there're at least two BC Pizzas here in Michigan. One began in Boyne City, and the other in Bay City. When the Boyne City chain opened up in Boyne City, they had to call it Best Choice instead.

(Moved from the Kinney thread, more relevant here) The one exception to the malling of shoe stores would have been the ultra cheap Pic-Way chain, which went for freestanding locations and would have been unattractive as a shopping center tenant in its early 2 pair/$5 days. According to an old phone ...

And as a bonus, here's a 1970s store in Saginaw that's now a (recently closed) Michaels: http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCP&cp=r7cbdw801phc&style=b&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&scene=27859052&encType=1 What I fi...

Personally, my intuition leans more towards the early to mid 1950s. Weren't they building generic shopping center-style stores with flat roofs by the end of the decade? A great find, in any case! I like how the stepped edge of the original rear wall protrudes from the roof. In another thread, someo...

I would guess that shoe stores became an exclusively shopping center thing pretty quickly and then easily moved into malls. Having a large number of shoe stores was the mark of relatively marginal mall, going back to the early 70s. Still true today. Having Famous Footwear is one of the many, many t...

I am 100% sure Sandusky Mall had a Montgomery Ward. Sears took over the space after Montgomery Ward closed. We moved away in 1982, on my first return visit in 1992 it was a Sears. Sears previously had an old store with the 1960s signage on Perkins Ave in a strip mall, part of which is now a Big Lot...

I haven't found very many in my area yet. I did find this one in Plymouth, Michigan, that's now an AT&T dealer: http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCP&cp=r1svz581b0sy&style=b&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&scene=56410...

That store looks like the store in Dearborn Michigan (complete with the rounded roof) that became a marshalls a few years ago, my guess is it was originally a mid to late 1960's store. You're right, it does. That store seems to date from around 1959, because I know that the former Crowley's at the ...

Birmingham - In 1996, Woodward Blvd (MI-1) was re-aligned and N. Hunter Blvd was renamed Woodward Blvd. Location appears to be demolished, date unknown. You can't even tell that Hunter Blvd. used to have restaurants; it's all offices now according to the bird's-eye views on Bing. I know I found a f...

http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCP&cp=r8121w8069c6&style=b&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&scene=40539380&encType=1 This looks like it was possibly a 1950s or 1960s era Kroger expanded into the 1970s prototype, as ...