Toledo Sneak Peek

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Groceteria
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Toledo Sneak Peek

Post by Groceteria »

I have a lot to add here over the next few days, but here are the location lists:

https://www.groceteria.com/place/ohio/toledo/

Toledo was lots of fun. Photos and more details, etc. to follow shortly.
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Andrew T.
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Re: Toledo Sneak Peek

Post by Andrew T. »

Wow! In spite of Toledo's proximity to Detroit, I've never spent much time there and never had more than a vague idea of what its historic retail development or supermarket presence was like...though I was plenty curious. A few take-aways from a glance over the data...

* As expected, there was a bit of chain crossover from Detroit...but not as much as you'd expect. Wrigley/Packer's and Farmer Jack both had token presences in Toledo (without either making much of an impact), while Meijer didn't sweep in until after 2000.

* It's interesting to see how Toledo's leading chain in store count bounced from Kroger in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s to A&P in the 1960s, Food Town in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, then back to Kroger again! I guess you could say the city has come full circle.

* I'm also surprised to see the sheer number of chains that operated in Toledo. Companies as varied as Marsh, National, Cub Foods, and Giant Eagle all tried to stake a claim in the market at some point or another.

Now, it's time to to dig through the tables to see what architectural gems lurk within...
"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."
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mburb1981
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Re: Toledo Sneak Peek

Post by mburb1981 »

Andrew T. wrote: 26 Aug 2019 15:12 * As expected, there was a bit of chain crossover from Detroit...while Meijer didn't sweep in until after 2000.
Actually, Meijer already had some Toledo locations by 2000. Here's the dates these stores opened according to a Meijer document that you can download from their vendor website:
-Maumee and Oregon: April 27, 1993
-Central Avenue: July 13, 1993
-Alexis Road: August 17, 1993
-Rossford: August 3, 2004
rich
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Re: Toledo Sneak Peek

Post by rich »

Suggestions for your store tags:
Bellman's should be Bellman's/Marsh; Marsh was a shortlived owner, but it's a historically important connection for anyone trying to research Marsh.
Add: Big Bear and Wrigley/Packer for similar reasons of history; Big Bear had multiple store locations in the mid-late 50s, which you might add as a footnote. Edwards might be worth adding because even though they only had one location, it was important as the westernmost outpost of First National/Pick-n-Pay.
Centre was enough of a presence to deserve a tag
Churchill's was part of a co-op known as 5-Star for many years which I think may have included Kazmaier's; browsing the Blade in Google newspapers would clarify this and you might add 5-Star as a tag.
Joseph's was an original part of FoodTown. which was organized as a co-op in the late 40s/early 50s--the FoodTown name was taken from Iott's, which was the dominant member. FoodTown later bought the Joseph's.

You're missing K-Mart Foods, which had multiple locations. including the Manhattan Ave Kash & Karry. They also had locations at: 5928 Central, 2830 Navarre, and a Reynolds Road location near Southwyck Mall (Probably the 2252 address--this was the last to open, I believe). They were run by Allied. All of them became Foodtown or its Kash-n-Karry banner. I think you've tagged all of them as Foodtowns, originally.

I didn't know that Lion had groceries. The one department store in downtown Toledo identified with a large grocery department was Tiedtke's at Summit & Adms which had a grocery department for decades. they were bought by Davidson Brothers/Federal's, the low end Detroit department store chain, in the early 60s and died with the rest of the chain in the 70s.
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Re: Toledo Sneak Peek

Post by Groceteria »

rich wrote: 27 Aug 2019 10:23 Suggestions for your store tags:
Duly noted. I'll give those a second look.
rich wrote: 27 Aug 2019 10:23You're missing K-Mart Foods, which had multiple locations. including the Manhattan Ave Kash & Karry. They also had locations at: 5928 Central, 2830 Navarre, and a Reynolds Road location near Southwyck Mall
If you check back, I think you'll see that Central, Reynolds, and Navarre actually are already listed in the spreadsheets as Kmart Food upon opening (1970 or 1975), and as Centre after that (1980 and 1985) and then Food Town (1990). Is that not correct? Manhattan did not show up in the city directories until 1980, and I think I have an article that references its opening as Food Town, but I'll double check.

Thanks for all the info!
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Re: Toledo Sneak Peek

Post by Groceteria »

mburb1981 wrote: 26 Aug 2019 18:21Actually, Meijer already had some Toledo locations by 2000.
Excellent. Thanks. Meijer stores show up very inconsistently in city directories, especially in the 1990s/2000s.
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Re: Toledo Sneak Peek

Post by rich »

Reynolds opened August, 1973. I somewhat randomly picked the date from the Toledo Blade archive in Google Newspapers, today. Manhattan already was open at that point. Given how KMart Foods operated (KMart awarded the franchise), none of the stores would have opened as FoodTowns, esp. with Wrigley/Allied already in the market. KMart Foods gradually disappeared around the mid to late 70s--probably as Allied (the dominant franchise) had its own developed problems. They then went with strategic partnerships with Grand Union, A&P and others.

I stumbled onto the Bellman's/Marsh connection and while I knew that Big Bear had had 2 stores--one of which became Kroger I hadn't realized they had had even more stores. Oddly, I don't think they ever expanded into any other Ohio metro areas. I now wonder if Borman ever entered the market during their Food Fair era.

BTW, you don't have the short-lived A&P owned Farmer Jacks in Toledo from the early 2000s in Toledo, although you have the 3 they bought from Churchill's in Holland, Sylvania, & Perrysburg. The Toledo stores were at 1707 Cherry and 2630 W Laskey,, and should probably need some sort of footnote or different tag since they weren't Borman's, like the 1974-89 store that A&P, ironically, closed. The Secor Rd Farmer Jacks was in a former discount store (a Topps, I believe) and enormous. They probably pushed out Joseph's when they moved into the space.

I would recommend taking some random looks at the Toledo Blade rather than relying on directories---you can see locations not captured by your 5 year looks. and its not that time consuming I've done research work in Toledo, including some work for the city-county planning agency which required me to learn a lot about how the city developed over the course of it's 1950-80 master plan, which was how I learned about a lot of the retail history. Super market chains came into Toledo (and went) in a way that had no parallel with other kinds of retail and this was true until the 90s, when outside interests came to dominate the landscape although local control of chains owned by outsiders such as LaSalle's department store (part of Macy's) ended a bit earlier.
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