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Tampa Bay Area Photos

Posted: 09 Jan 2010 17:33
by Groceteria
FYI, I just added an album of over 100 photos of Tampa Bay area stores here, including shots I took on my recent road trip to the area:

http://www.groceteria.com/photos2/album ... -area.html

There are also about 150 non-grocery shots (inlcuding motels, diners, and other retail) some of you may still find interesting here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/otherstrea ... 129342044/

Sorry, Steve. I didn't unearth many Food Fairs. There is a bit of J.M. Fields, though :)

Re: Tampa Bay Area Photos

Posted: 10 Jan 2010 05:33
by Steve Landry
Wonderful fotos!!!

Thanks

:)

Re: Tampa Bay Area Photos

Posted: 10 Jan 2010 16:26
by Groceteria
Thanks. I added a few more vintage photos today culled from various online newspaper archives. There's a Pantry Pride, a (not very good) internal shot of the first Skaggs-Albertsons in the area, and others:

http://www.groceteria.com/photos2/album ... -area.html

I'll be adding a brief history of the area later today or tomorrow.

Re: Tampa Bay Area Photos

Posted: 17 Jan 2010 14:35
by Andrew T.
I like the vintage Publix pictures! Tampa is a place I've never been to firsthand...

Re: Tampa Bay Area Photos

Posted: 17 Jan 2010 17:35
by Swifty
This store: http://www.flickr.com/photos/18435608@N00/4260428624/
And this store: http://www.flickr.com/photos/18435608@N00/4259726209/

I don't recognize the prototype. It almost looks like an A&P Futurestore, but I'm fairly positive those never made an appearance in the Tampa area. (It was Family Mart territory). So that leaves...Albertsons?

As I recall, After Florida's Choice vacated the Family MArt locations, Kash 'n' Karry (now Sweetbay) took a lot of them over. And I believe there is still a Family Mart Shopping Center somewhere in the Tampa area with a Sweetbay market. I found that amusing.

Great pictures!

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One more.

This: http://www.groceteria.com/photos2/album ... _1101.html

I Google mapped it. Judging by the stacked sign out front, I'm thinking this could have been a Wal-Mart at one time. I'm not 100% confident about that.

Re: Tampa Bay Area Photos

Posted: 17 Jan 2010 23:17
by Groceteria
Swifty wrote:This store: http://www.flickr.com/photos/18435608@N00/4260428624/
And this store: http://www.flickr.com/photos/18435608@N00/4259726209/

I don't recognize the prototype. It almost looks like an A&P Futurestore, but I'm fairly positive those never made an appearance in the Tampa area. (It was Family Mart territory). So that leaves...Albertsons?
Wow. Until you posted, I had somehow overlooked that similarity. I really don't think Albertsons, though. Maybe there was another player we're missing here?

Re: Tampa Bay Area Photos

Posted: 18 Jan 2010 01:13
by Swifty
Apparently, the Publix used to be a Kash N' Karry. Publix purchased the location prior to KK's changeover to Sweetbay.
http://www.publix.com/about/newsroom/Ne ... ItemPK=425

So, perhaps that was a late '90s/early 2000s Kash N Karry prototype?

Re: Tampa Bay Area Photos

Posted: 18 Jan 2010 20:49
by dooneyt63
Definitely a Kash 'n Karry design. There are others like it in other markets in Florida. This was one of the attempts to jazz up the store design. Previously, the Kash 'n Karry stores were vanilla strip center fronts. These were nice stores at the time inside and out.

Re: Tampa Bay Area Photos

Posted: 18 Jan 2010 22:44
by Groceteria
dooneyt63 wrote:Definitely a Kash 'n Karry design.
That was going to be my guess, but I've been out of town and didn't have the time nor inclination to research it over the weekend. Thanks.

Re: Tampa Bay Area Photos

Posted: 19 Jan 2010 12:43
by trainman
Swifty wrote:This: http://www.groceteria.com/photos2/album ... _1101.html

I Google mapped it. Judging by the stacked sign out front, I'm thinking this could have been a Wal-Mart at one time. I'm not 100% confident about that.
Not a Wal-Mart -- they weren't in Tampa until the late '80s/early '90s.

This may well have been a TG&Y or something along those lines. I'm racking my brain trying to remember, but I grew up in south Tampa, and so rarely went by this location. (None of the stores of my youth appear to have made it to the Groceteria lens -- but then, it seems like they've all either been torn down and replaced, been torn down and not replaced, or aren't particularly interesting.)

Re: Tampa Bay Area Photos

Posted: 20 Jan 2010 02:04
by jimbobga
A couple of things...

The unidentified building - now a post office - a 6706 Nebraska Avenue was probably an A&P. This location is within blocks of, and on the opposite side of the street from, the Publix shown just prior to that. There was also an A&P on Cocoa Beach with the same architecture. The A&P circle logo would be in the center, and the rectangular panels were painted in pastel colors.

Also, the Publix at 6001 N. Nebraska is a new build; one of the original Tampa Publix company-built stores was on the same site. I have no idea when the old store was replaced, but the new store features a corner entrance, while the old store had the traditional green marble with doors in the center facing the street.

There was another Tampa-based chain not mentioned here at all: U-Save. When I was in college at USF in 1971, there were about eight of these stores in Tampa, including an ancient store downtown. The stores resembled what Food Lion [Food Town] would have looked like at that time. I do not know what became of that chain.

Re: Tampa Bay Area Photos

Posted: 20 Jan 2010 09:23
by Groceteria
jimbobga wrote:Also, the Publix at 6001 N. Nebraska is a new build; one of the original Tampa Publix company-built stores was on the same site. I have no idea when the old store was replaced, but the new store features a corner entrance, while the old store had the traditional green marble with doors in the center facing the street.
I think it was built sometime in the 1990s. There's some discussion of that store in this thread:
http://www.groceteria.com/board/viewtop ... =14&t=2647

Re: Tampa Bay Area Photos

Posted: 23 Jan 2010 23:23
by Groceteria
jimbobga wrote:There was another Tampa-based chain not mentioned here at all: U-Save. When I was in college at USF in 1971, there were about eight of these stores in Tampa, including an ancient store downtown. The stores resembled what Food Lion [Food Town] would have looked like at that time. I do not know what became of that chain.
A little research shows that the chain operated at least until 2005 and was owned by B&B Holdings, at least for its last twenty years or so. The downtown store had originally been the Tampa farmer's market and became a U-Save in 1967. It was apparently torn down in 1991 for a parking lot.

Re: Tampa Bay Area Photos

Posted: 24 Jan 2010 14:05
by Groceteria
I've posted a Tampa Bay area history timeline for your amusement:

http://www.groceteria.com/place/southea ... -timeline/

It can obviously be improved (and will). It's currently a little Pinellas County-centric, because I had the St. Pete newspaper archives as a major source. There's also very little pre-1950. Suggestions welcome. An overview and more photos are coming soon.

And a couple of questions, if I may:

1. Was A&P as marginal a player in the Tampa area as the lack of newspaper coverage suggests? Were they merely the first of many national chains to have difficulty here?

2. Any other big chains I've missed? I know I need more on B&B/U-Save, but I just haven't found much.

Re: Tampa Bay Area Photos

Posted: 24 Jan 2010 17:08
by dooneyt63
A&P was a fairly marginal player in the Tampa Bay area with far fewer locations than Winn Dixie or Publix. In its heyday, A&P had stores pretty much all over the state. As they retreated, many fair-sized cities (Sarasota comes to mind) had only one location. The Family Mart experiment briefly changed this but was ultimately unsuccessful. Early on, Winn Dixie considered them a major competitor. At their peak, the sheer size of the chain allowed it to really work against competitors, even in secondary markets. In Northwest Florida and in many small towns throughout the state, A&P was the only national chain supermarket for years. I think the strong loyalty to Publix (and a lesser degree Winn Dixie) has really made it difficult for other chains in Florida. Even before the spiffy Publix stores of today, there has always been a distinct difference in the shopping experience there.