A pretty successful location?

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Groceteria
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A pretty successful location?

Post by Groceteria »

The first Kroger store on this site (2100-2124 Beechmont Avenue in Cincinnati) opened in 1922. Three or four buildings later, there has been one here ever since:

https://t.co/G0eBu3syH5

The first, obviously, was a small storefront that no doubt expanded and was likely replaced at some point. A superstore opened at the south end of the site in the mid to late 1970s. That was replaced by the current building in probably the late 1990s.

Obviously, it's been a pretty good site for Kroger. This tops my two other "longest tenure by one chain in the same location" winners, which were two Safeway stores, one in Washington DC (MacArthur Blvd, same building since the 1940s, expanded) and the other in San Francisco (same location since the early 1940s but a new building in 1972). I'm sure there are a few other contenders scattered about as well, but it would be hard to top 95 years in the same block.
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Andrew T.
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Re: A pretty successful location?

Post by Andrew T. »

This is great! Thanks for sharing.

Historic Aerials shows a modestly-sized building of ~10,000 square feet on the site from 1955 to 1970. This building had a street-flush alignment, and initially no parking lot (until the woods behind the store were cleared for one around 1959 or so). Their 1932 imagery is blurry, so I can't tell if the same building existed then.

Another curiosity is the bank at 2110 Beechmont: It was built in 1928 (according to the Hamilton County Auditor), so it's been a fixture on the property for almost as long as Kroger. Kroger's 1970s superstore actually wrapped around the bank with an L-shaped notch in the footprint; its cube sign and dark brick facing are (barely) visible in this 1993 auditor's picture:
V0000407-2893.jpg
"The pale pastels which have been featured in most food stores during the past 20 years are no longer in tune with the mood of the 1970s."
Andrew Turnbull
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