[Daniel]

While this store says "Eagle" now, I have a feeling it was something else originally. The entrance I photographed is a corner entrance right on Euclid. In the middle of the building there was an overhang with "ENTRANCE" over it, but this was unaccessable as the former grocery's parking lot is in use for the Cleveland Playhouse. (They built a new building next door to this property and put a fence right in front of this building, leaving the main entry unaccessable.)

Any ideas what the original tenant could have been? Pick And Pay?



http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f396/ ... agle01.jpg

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f396/ ... gle012.jpg

[LadyNoir]

I am orginally from Cleveland, Ohio. I remember Pick N Pay while growing up and I don't ever remember any locations looking like that. The building looks very 1950s and it is possible it was a Pick N Pay or maybe something else altogether. Cook United bought Pick N Pay in the early 50s and around the same time they bought a chain called Foodtown. Plus other Cleveland area groceries were Fazio's and Stop and Shop so it could be one of them. I am curious about where the Eagle name came in. Was this an old Eagle supermarket as well?

Man, it just looks so heartbreakingly sad. That front entrance must have been pretty unique and distinct when this location was first built. It is looks as if it in horrible condition. I am going out to Ohio this wknd. I am going to jot down the address and see if my cousin knows anything about this building.

[Sdorulla]

This store was either an A&P or a Fisher Foods as they both operated stores on this part of Euclid, I cannot remember which for sure. The Pick-n-Pay was farther east on Euclid, with an address in the 90's. I am leaning toward Fisher Foods, with Eagle taking over when Fisher's left. Eagle was a coop of independent grocers in Cleveland usually located in the inner city. The name was changed to Shoppers' Choice once Giant Eagle arrived in Cleveland, but I don't think it exists anymore. The A&P building, by the way, was used by the Playhouse for awhile. This was part of a shopping area anchored by one of two magnificient 1920's Sears stores in Cleveland, the other being at W. 110th and Lorain. The Sears building, facing Carnegie Avenue, was taken over by the Playhouse, while the W. 110th one was demolished in the 80's to make way for a shopping center anchored by a Finast/Tops.

Stan D.

[rich]

There was a Pick-n-Pay near by at 93rd & Euclid in a shopping center that was carved out of an old skating rink (known as "Skateland") in the 50s. The shopping center still stands and Rite Aid occupies the Pick-n-Pay space (a linear descendent of the Gray Drug that was there).

This was the Fisher Foods. The labelscar from it's days as a Fazio's (which took over Fisher) is still visible (the places where the fasteners for the letters for the Fazio name would have been). Fazio closed a great many Fisher stores in the inner city after they took over in the mid-60s (Fisher was was everywhere in the city and the 'burbs), but kept this one going until about 1980. The A&P had a somewhat similar design with very similar colored brick, with art deco-ish lettering and faced Euclid. It may have been demolished when the new Cleveland Playhouse building went up. The Fisher store went up in the 50s and replaced a store at 96th & Euclid that became the long running Abood's Foods--my grandmother (who lived on E 96th, a short distance away) never forgave Fisher for foresaking her.

BTW, there was a fantastically unique Fisher store on E 93rd St., S of Kinsman Ave. I haven't been over that way in many many years, but it also lasted to about 1980. The store was clad in ceramic tile that was a light green (Fisher's colors were green & gold), with a very large pylon and a kind of streamlined/art moderne architecture that's difficult to describe. They never opened a store like that again and usually went for simple brick.

[Daniel]

Thanks for solving that mystery! I had forgotten about Fazio's/Fisher. Sometime I'll have to go through the Playhouse parking lot and peek inside this building. It is in pretty sad shape, though. I can't quite figure out why it's still standing, since the Playhouse put up a fence for their parking lot that blocks all but that street entrance to the building. You couldn't really get inside the building if you wanted to.

[Toby Radloff]

I am very familiar with that store. It was originally Fisher Foods, then later became a Fazio's. Fazio's kept the "Fisher Foods Master Markets" signage up till at least the mid-1970's, then it was replaced with "Fazio's", until the store closed in the late 1970's. Eagle (a Cleveland based independent co-op, not to be confused with Giant Eagle) then took over the store, and operated it till the late 1980's, when the Church Square Supermarket opened in a newly constructed shopping plaza at East 79th and Euclid. I believe the former owners of this Eagle supermarket are the current owners of Church Square Supermarket, which is part of the "Neighbor's Choice" co-op, which was the former Eagle co-op renamed in the mid-1980's when Giant Eagle started opening stores in NE OH. The name change was done to avoid confusion with "Eagle" and "Giant Eagle". The store, sadly, sat vacant and vandalized since the late 1980's. A&P had a store at 8514 Euclid, which closed in the early 1970's...I think that was next door to the former Sears auto service department (the Cleveland Play House's main building is a former Sears store.) The former Fisher/Fazio/Eagle is at 8400 Euclid Avenue. Lastly, Sears called their first large department stores "Searstowns", which also featured variety stores and supermarkets. A similar Searstown was at West 110th and Lorain Avenue, which closed in the late 1980's and was torn down to make way for the Westown Square shopping center, anchored by a Giant Eagle (formerly Finast/Tops). The Lorain Avenue Searstown also had a Fisher Foods, and I think, an S.S. Kresge store. Kresge's was also at the Euclid/Carnegie Searstown complex.

[Toby Radloff]

The East 93rd & Kinsman Fisher Foods had huge "Fisher Foods" letters with the word "Dependable Meats" above the windows. That store was a work of art deco imagination as well. And up until the early 1960's, A&P had a store in that same small plaza. Fazio's closed the Kinsman location in the early 1970's, and, I think, another grocer took over briefly. The building still stands, but is hardly recognizable due to years of decay and vandalism.

[Toby Radloff]

There was a Pick-n-Pay near by at 93rd & Euclid in a shopping center that was carved out of an old skating rink (known as "Skateland") in the 50s. The shopping center still stands and Rite Aid occupies the Pick-n-Pay space (a linear descendent of the Gray Drug that was there).

After Pick-N-Pay closed, the former Skateland building was torn down to make way for Cleveland Clinic parking. The Pick-N-Pay closed in the early 1990's, and Rite Aid built a freestanding store across East 93rd Street from the old location, behind a building that has a Key Bank, a restaurant, and Cleveland Clinic offices.

[LadyNoir]

My hats go off to Toby and Stan and Rich for ending the mystery. I knew it just wasn't a Pick N Pay and I had a feeling it probably belonged to the Fisher Foods/Fazio's empire. Even though the store closed in 1980 which happened to be the year I made my entrance into the world in Cleveland, my gut just told me that it must've been Fisher/Fazios. I don't know why I felt that way. Instinct, I guess.

The 93rd street store that you all mentioned aka the other great work of art deco masterpiece now sadly neglected, I am affraid to ask, but does anyone have pictures of that one?
Edina

[Daniel]

Some afternoon I'll have to drive by that intersection and see what's left of that building.

[Daniel]

I drove past E. 93rd and Kinsman today, and there'a a tiny shopping center with what looks to be an old grocery store now operating as a liquor store. (The space has a huge pylon on top with nothing on it) Was this the center you were talking about? There isn't anything art deco left on it anymore. Nearby is a new McDonald's on one corner, and a new KFC is on another corner but that is already closed. Next door to the KFC is an abandoned White Castle.

[rich]

The pylon would be the giveaway. There was nothing like it anywhere around there. The Art Deco was mostly in the lettering. They've probably stripped the old tile.

There also was a Pick-n-Pay at 93rd, further South, near Union, but that was a plain brick building.

[Toby Radloff]

Another former Fisher Foods with that style architecture that survives is at 4004 East 131st St., near Harvard...the building is a church now...a steeple was erected on the left of the building, and the rounded entrance is still there, although the entire building is covered with stucco now.

The former Fisher Foods at 2348 Professor Avenue (in the Tremont area) is now an art gallery-that building also once had the rounded entryway, but has been extensively remodeled and refacaded. Still another ex-Fisher, on West 25th Street south of Clark Avenue, was a blood donation center (Plasma Alliance) for a long time...the Fisher Foods architecture was retained up through the mid-1980's, but again, the building was extensively remodeled and refaced. It is still a medical-related facility.

[Daniel]

I found on Flickr some interior shots of this old Fisher Foods. I'm guessing this is the original 60's interior.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hellmutt/2 ... 198677547/

[rich]

Intersting pics. The store probably received a remodel sometime after Fazio's took over the chain--probably late 60s or even early 70s given the burnt orange produce cases. "Garden Fresh" was more Fisher than Fazio and might have been retained with the addition of the dark wood accents. Fazio ignored many of the older stores--the Pearl-Brook store was a museum piece when it closed in the 70s, largely untouched from its c. 1949 opening. Other stores received cursory remodels like the one on E 185th (a store from the late 30s that had gotten some updates in the interim). They didn't invest much in stores over time, regardless of whether they were roiginally Fisher or Fazio--their 1964ish remodel of the Lake Shore Blvd store in Euclid was largely untouched until it was closed, sometime in the 80s. The first post-Fisher acquisition store on Euclid Ave in Wickliffe also stayed the same until its demise in the late 80s/early 90s.