NEW: Bloomington IN 1929-2020

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Groceteria
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NEW: Bloomington IN 1929-2020

Post by Groceteria »

A midwestern quickie for your Tuesday night:

https://www.groceteria.com/place/indiana/bloomington/
rich
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Re: NEW: Bloomington IN 1929-2020

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I lived there in the late 80s. Eisner was a downstate Illinois/Indiana subsidiary of Jewel from the 50s to the 80s; Jewel kept Bloomington and West Lafayette, renaming them Jewel, but sold the others in Indiana and much of downstate Illinois in the early 80s.

There was a KMart Foods, probably 3175 E Third (the KMart site, now demolished) operated by National that probably opened in the 70s. This became a Preston-Safeway (no relation to the bigger Safeway chain, this one was local to the Indianapolis area). Marsh bought the Indianapolis Standard/National warehouse but many of the stores went to Preston-Safeway. The Standard at the mall probably was converted to other retail--there was nothing that looked like it could have been a super market. The mall had a continual evolution from the 60s through the 80s; it was more popular with townies and people from nearby towns than with university types, who were more likely to go to Indy or make occasional trips to Cincinnati or Louisville.

Bloomington had (and still has) a big town/gown social split. The stores on S College or N College/Walnut and to the West had a "townie" trade.

I was curious about Buehler's. There's a chain with that name in north central Ohio (small towns in the area between Akron, Canton & Columbus), but there was another one with that name based in Jasper, Indiana that had stores in the Evansville area.
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Re: NEW: Bloomington IN 1929-2020

Post by Groceteria »

rich wrote: 23 May 2023 20:39There was a KMart Foods, probably 3175 E Third (the KMart site, now demolished) operated by National that probably opened in the 70s.
There was a now-demolished Kmart adjacent to the 3216 E. Third Standard/National location in the list, so this seems to be the one you're thinking of. The Kmart still shows in the older Google Street View imagery. This location was a NoFrills in 1980, which was a US outpost of the Loblaws corporate cousin which launched in Canada in 1978. In 1985 it was something called Lowell's Discount Foods, which I assumed was an independent, but as it turns out, Lowell's was connected with Preston Safeway. It seems to have dropped out of sight following a 1988 strike and a 1990 bankruptcy. I should have checked the Indy list; several stores there followed the Standard > Lowell's > Preston Safeway trajectory.

The two different spellings of Beuhlers (1985)/Buehlers (2005+) in its two different appearances in the list reflect the actual spelling variations in the directories. Wasn't sure if both were the same chain or not.

(Edited to reflect better info about No Frills and Lowells)
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