Groceteria.com

The sign is too squarish to be from the "blue rectangle" period of Kroger. More likely a Big Bear. Also could have been an Albers/Colonial---they had a store in roughly that area until about 1970--easy to picture "Albers" in block letters below the CS-rooster.

There's some variation by country. I never cared for the US slurpee, but became addicted to them living in Bangkok Thailand, where they are made from Coca Cola products (including Minute Maid & Fanta). The recipe there is probably like the one in Canada, with differences resulting from the local...

The early history of Jewel has always been difficult to locate. They went into retail stores much later than other "tea companies" like A&P or National. An old Moody's stock manual dated their entry into grocery stores to the 30s. My guess is that they had some stores to support their ...

Top Value originally was owned by a consortium of chains--Kroger, Stop & Shop (Boston), Giant (Landover), and Penn Fruit, there may have been others. Kroger was the last to drop stamps and gradually had bought the other shares, as its partners dropped the stamps. They spun off the business after...

Until recently, Winn Dixie made soda for other chains including their major Florida competitor, Publix. Kroger also makes house brand items for other chains. Their bakeries (the regional ones, not the instores) used to make goods for competitors, as well---they might still do that today.

Did Jewel ever extend further West than Quad Cities? They've receded from a huge territory that once included most of downstate Illinois, as well as Indianapolis and Bloomington, IN (mcuh of that was under the Eisner banner, at least originally). For many years, they were absent from Milwaukee, afte...

The pylon and the design of the entryway, as well as the streetside location (for walkers & bus users if Cordele had buses) would seem to make the 16th Ave store an early 50s location.

Looking for something else, I found a very readble early history of supermarkets, in the Hofstra Law jounral of all places: http://www.hofstra.edu/pdf/law_helper.pdf The focus is on use of the term"super market", but they describe the early efforts at super markets---large store experiment...

The merger was forced by Sir Jmes Goldsmith who had bought the chains, along with a slew of other businesses that he ran into the ground (Macmillian-McGraw-Hill comes to mind; he made a lot of money unsuccessfully trying to take over Goodyear or Goodrich). And yes, I forgot about Florida. That's whe...

They were never national. They probably reached their maximum geographic coverage around the early 1960s, unless you count their forced merger with the the remnants of Colonial Stores in the 80s. The bought a number of chains in the DC area during the 50s. I don't know if they ever had stores beyond...

The first generation McDs had no drive through (that started in the mid-70s) and no seating (that came after Burger King became entrenched, in the late 60s/early 70s). They did fully enclose the order area, under the front overhang during the winter and heated it with overhead electric space heaters...

They used to have an overseas presence in Asia, but I think that 's gone, too. The pizza was just as bad there as here.... Their real heyday was in the 60s & 70s.; they just got outflanked by Pizza Hut , no to mention carryout operations like Dominos.

The last Red Owl was in downtown Marquette, Mi--a nondescript 1950s store.

Grant's suffered from spotty coverage in many places. They did okay when everyone had downtown stores and people shopped downtown, but they couldn't compete successfully with Woolworth or Kresge (or GC MUrphy on their home turf in PA) for the spots in the first generation of suburban shopping center...

I think King's HQ was in New England. They had a lot of stores in Connecticut. They seemed to be the main low-end discounter, in contrast to Caldor (much like the current Target) and even K-Mart. In New England, they co-located quite a few stores with Finast. They were still in business in the mid-8...