Kroger in Washington DC

Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia.

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mjhale
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Kroger in Washington DC

Post by mjhale »

I've been reading an interesting online book (http://sfp.ucdavis.edu/files/143750.pdf) about the Greenbelt (MD) Cooperative which owned a number of grocery stores around the DC area in the 1950s through the 1970s. What is interesting is that the books discusses the Cooperative's purchase of Kroger's DC area operations in 1967. It is said that they purchased eight operating Kroger stores (4 in MD and 4 in VA) and one that was under construction in VA. Does anyone happen to know where any of these Kroger locations were? Ultimately the Greenbelt Cooperative was not successful with these stores. It caused a large burden on the organization leading to them focusing on another money making part of the group - Scan Furniture. Scan went out of business in 2007 after a long and protracted disagreement with their union. The Greenbelt Cooperative still has one store in greenbelt, MD.
CleanupOnAisle5

Re: Kroger in Washington DC

Post by CleanupOnAisle5 »

My parents took me to the grand opening of the Kroger in Annandale...on 236 just past Backlick Road, opposite what was then a SuperGiant. I do recall the later conversion to Coop, but no clue what's there now.
rich
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Re: Kroger in Washington DC

Post by rich »

The old DCGrocery site had a scan of a Kroger ad with the store locations.

Kroger got established in the Washington area by buying a small local chain called Foodtown. Although Safeway (esp. back then) and Giant dominated the market with Grand Union as distant third, there were several chains with small footprints Acme and Food Fair (which had operated as Food Lane because of a local Food Fair chain, later bought by Grand Union). Acme had been in the market since at least the 40s. There also was the local Jumbo chain which I believe was the foundation for Shoppers Food Mart. Shop Rite briefly had a small number of stores during the 1960s, operated by Foodarama, but withdrew quickly. A&P had a relatively small footprint, compared with their other East Coast markets.
dcgrocery
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Re: Kroger in Washington DC

Post by dcgrocery »

here is the scan from my old site.
Attachments
1963 locations
1963 locations
mjhale
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Re: Kroger in Washington DC

Post by mjhale »

Is the Kroger that is listed on Arlington Blvd in Falls Church the building that is now Harvest Moon Chinese restaurant? The address matches to a residence further down Arlington Blvd. But a friend who grew up in Falls Church in the 1960s says Harvest Moon was either a Kroger or an A&P but she can't remember for sure.

Are any of the Kroger locations listed still extant with any semblance of a grocery?

And how ironic that Kroger is back in DC with their purchase of Harris Teeter...
dcgrocery
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Re: Kroger in Washington DC

Post by dcgrocery »

Hi. No, the Kroger was across the street in Loehmanns Plaza at the site where Giant built their new store. It did convert to a Consumers Co-Op but the building wasn't recognizable in later years before it was demolished. I forget who the last tenant was but I think it was a clothing store.

I've heard two different stories about the Harvest Moon - 1) it was the original neighborhood Safeway until the late 50's when the store moved to a new building on Graham Road. or 2) it was an early Acme that moved up the street on Graham Rd. in the building that later became Super Saver (Acme's discount experiment), then Magruders, now international. This was all way before my time and I'm also curious which version is right. It wasn't an A&P - the A&P for that neighborhood was at 6680 Arlington Blvd (now a Merchants Tire).

Looking over the list at all the Kroger locations I can't think of any that are still standing or aren't altered beyond recognition. The Eastover Kroger / Consumers was a perfect time capsule when it operated as an independent store in the 80's. Man I wish I would have taken photos! The building is still there but no trace of the supermarket remains.

The only location I'm unsure about is the 640 univ. bldv e. Silver Spring. Now it operates as a LA Mart. Formerly it was a Chinese market named Maxim. I doubt if anything interesting has survived from the Kroger / Consumers days.
BatteryMill
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Re: Kroger in Washington DC

Post by BatteryMill »

As part of my Kroger project I've done more digging and discovered the roots of this division stem from the acquisition of Food Town (not related to Lion) in 1960 followed by a rebranding in 1961. I don't know much about this Food Town but I do know they opened some stores in Washington proper, Alexandria, and Prince George's.
mjhale wrote: 01 Sep 2014 10:53 Is the Kroger that is listed on Arlington Blvd in Falls Church the building that is now Harvest Moon Chinese restaurant? The address matches to a residence further down Arlington Blvd. But a friend who grew up in Falls Church in the 1960s says Harvest Moon was either a Kroger or an A&P but she can't remember for sure.

Are any of the Kroger locations listed still extant with any semblance of a grocery?

And how ironic that Kroger is back in DC with their purchase of Harris Teeter...
As I was looking at store numbers (the directories have highlighted many locations) I noticed that there were two numbers for a store around Loehmann's Plaza in Arlington, with one having existed prior to the construction of said center after 1962 or so.
BillyGr
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Re: Kroger in Washington DC

Post by BillyGr »

BatteryMill wrote: 04 Oct 2022 00:49 As part of my Kroger project I've done more digging and discovered the roots of this division stem from the acquisition of Food Town (not related to Lion) in 1960 followed by a rebranding in 1961. I don't know much about this Food Town but I do know they opened some stores in Washington proper, Alexandria, and Prince George's.
mjhale wrote: 01 Sep 2014 10:53 Is the Kroger that is listed on Arlington Blvd in Falls Church the building that is now Harvest Moon Chinese restaurant? The address matches to a residence further down Arlington Blvd. But a friend who grew up in Falls Church in the 1960s says Harvest Moon was either a Kroger or an A&P but she can't remember for sure.

Are any of the Kroger locations listed still extant with any semblance of a grocery?

And how ironic that Kroger is back in DC with their purchase of Harris Teeter...
As I was looking at store numbers (the directories have highlighted many locations) I noticed that there were two numbers for a store around Loehmann's Plaza in Arlington, with one having existed prior to the construction of said center after 1962 or so.
Makes sense that they were unrelated, as that is the main reason that the more known one eventually switched to Food Lion, as they wanted to expand the areas they served and couldn't in some places due to other chains in those areas already using the Food Town name.
rich
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Re: Kroger in Washington DC

Post by rich »

The Rockville location was Magruder's for a long time. Now it seems to be a Chinese restaurant. The Kensington address might be missing a digit. The most obvious candidate for it would be Strosniders (hardware) but I think that was an old Acme and the address is on Connecticut Ave.
BatteryMill
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Re: Kroger in Washington DC

Post by BatteryMill »

rich wrote: 06 Oct 2022 09:23 The Rockville location was Magruder's for a long time. Now it seems to be a Chinese restaurant. The Kensington address might be missing a digit. The most obvious candidate for it would be Strosniders (hardware) but I think that was an old Acme and the address is on Connecticut Ave.
Is the Rockville location at 12 Washington in Downtown? Looks like there were plenty of address changes in the Washington area since the 1970s, primarily in Northern Virginia. I found a CVS on the site of the Kensington Kroger.
rich
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Re: Kroger in Washington DC

Post by rich »

The Rockville address is just North of the new town center. There was a long running Giant nearby, a little further North. What looked like an A-frame Acme on Rt 355 also was just North of downtown, but that was demolished ages ago. It was a carpet/rug store (the Pike used to have many of these) in its last days.
mjhale
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Re: Kroger in Washington DC

Post by mjhale »

rich wrote: 06 Oct 2022 09:23 The Rockville location was Magruder's for a long time. Now it seems to be a Chinese restaurant. The Kensington address might be missing a digit. The most obvious candidate for it would be Strosniders (hardware) but I think that was an old Acme and the address is on Connecticut Ave.
Strosniders was a 1960s Acme. When the Acme Style blog was still around someone posted an old ad from Acme that had the Kensington store listed in the ad. The exterior of the building looks very similar to the Acme stores that an Acme Markets sign written out in script lettering.
mjhale
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Re: Kroger in Washington DC

Post by mjhale »

BatteryMill wrote: 08 Oct 2022 00:07
rich wrote: 06 Oct 2022 09:23 The Rockville location was Magruder's for a long time. Now it seems to be a Chinese restaurant. The Kensington address might be missing a digit. The most obvious candidate for it would be Strosniders (hardware) but I think that was an old Acme and the address is on Connecticut Ave.
Is the Rockville location at 12 Washington in Downtown? Looks like there were plenty of address changes in the Washington area since the 1970s, primarily in Northern Virginia. I found a CVS on the site of the Kensington Kroger.
The shopping strip with the old Kroger, long time Magruders, was on the east side of North Washington Street between Middle Lane and Beall Street. Continuing north on Washington, Giant would have been on the east side north of Beall Street. There were a couple of small office buildings before you got to Giant. The Giant was a classic "cheese grater" exterior. The interior made it all the way to the red neon era. After the Rockville Hechinger closed Giant purchased the site and built a brand new replacement store there.
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