Groceteria.com

I was in Milwaukee yesterday, so I took the opportunity to get a few pictures in. Here's Becher Street: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4028/4352063694_de856d70ee.jpg http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2695/4352063696_a29bdcf704.jpg This was an interesting store. The street face appeared to be finished o...

While it doesn't solve the Thrifty mystery, I do remember that a year or so before being swallowed by Revco in 1994, SupeRx was using shopping bags printed with a grid of six rectangular logos like these (presumably for SupeRx, Hooks, Brooks, Gasen's, Thrifty, and Sav-On). The same grid appeared on ...

There were quite a few Kroger stores in the Milwaukee area before they pulled out of the market. Thanks JJSPC! Out of curiosity I scouted out some of the addresses with online imagery, and it looks like the Becher Street location is a great example of a late 1950s era store. The River Bend location...

I was browsing through old family pictures, and happened upon these logos on a small promotional pamphlet included with a photo sleeve from 1992: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2787/4286423752_d58666ae0b.jpg I'm very familiar with SupeRx, it being the local drugstore of my youth; but what about the ...

I like the vintage Publix pictures! Tampa is a place I've never been to firsthand...

Eckerd seems to have had a spotty past. Way back in the late '80s, a number of their southern WV and southeast VA stores were sold to SupeRx drugs, which for a time operated the stores with hard-to-read yellow-on-white signs encased within the capsule-shaped Eckerd signframe...

For comparison, here's the Houston store. The facade's been added onto a bit, but the greenhouse and curved walls are still intact:

Yep, definitely an ex-Kroger. Here is a similar store in Lynchburg, Virginia: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3660/3612870070_6e25ac44f9.jpg I'm not completely sure of the chronological spread of this design, but I associate it most strongly with 1979-80. Most early 1980s Kroger stores had a wider gr...

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2646/4206771209_f9730520c9.jpg This is a picture of the Kmart store in Manitowoc, WI that opened in a former Copps department store/hypermarket building in November 1985 (and closed less than a decade later). Although the image quality isn't that great, you'll notice ...

I've come across similar juxtapositions in newspaper ads, actually: In the midst of my microfilm browsing, I recall seeing a 1979 ad that used the modern (78-91) typewriter logo in conjunction with a photo of pre-78 era packaging, and a 1981 ad that likewise used a photo of pre-78 era packaging. Doe...

*sigh* Yet another Kmart bites the dust... In the old photo, you can catch a glimpse of the (mostly) green and white decor package that predated Kmart's orange interior look of the late '70s and early '80s. Several layers of strata are visible on the exterior of the building, too. The store has the ...

I've been looking through a lot of local newspaper microfilms in my free time lately. Just for fun, I tried pinpointing when a few retailers' identities changed; at least in print: Last appearance of the old Kmart logo , December 16, 1990. First appearance of the new Kmart logo , December 30, 1990. ...

I don't think the floor tiling looks very Kroger-like, myself; unless this is what they were doing just before the '70s superstore era kicked in...

It's nice coming back to this topic again. I also thought it was odd for Kroger not to have a presence in Fairmont: I hadn't thought of the city falling on a market area boundary before, but that explanation makes as much sense as any. Incidentally, I have a friend who used to work at the ex-A&P...

Oh dear. About how many operational Safeway/Vons marina stores will Los Angeles be left with after this?

The exterior of this one looks a bit odd, with the Vons sign tacked above the blank Safeway panels...