Prairie Market

Daniel · Post by **Daniel** » 07 Feb 2007 03:32

I'm curious on the general history of this chain. I know there was at least one location in Fresno, it sat vacant for many years after the store's closure. The entire strip burned down about 10 years ago and nothing has been built there since. The only other remnants of the chain I've come across are a paper bag and a shopping cart still in use at the Salvation Army.

marshd1000 · Post by **marshd1000** » 07 Feb 2007 12:21

Prairie Market was a Seattle based "warehouse" chain started in the 1960's by the now defunct Tradewell. They were pretty bare bones and had no service bakery or deli sections as most were built before that became the norm for supermarkets. Many of them were former Tradewells that were reformatted. You also had to mark your own prices on the packages with a grease pencil. Most stores were in Washington and Oregon as far as I know with a few in California.

tesg · Post by **tesg** » 08 Feb 2007 01:38

The brand was also in the Midwest under Nash-Finch, who I assume own the trademark. I want to say they originally required memberships to shop there, but I'm thinking WAY back into my childhood (to the Beaverton store, specifically) and might be wrong about that. But there were a precious few in the 1980's in the upper Midwest. Nash-Finch had another brand, "Food Bonanza", which was an identical operation.

Extremely cheap, no-frills operations.

Nash-Finch still operates the Rapid City, SD store. Same logo I remember as a child. http://www.prairiemarket.com

Daniel · Post by **Daniel** » 08 Feb 2007 04:19

Thanks for the info. I knew people at least had to bag their own groceries there because of the "How To Bag Groceries" diagrams printed on the back of the bag I found.

tkaye · Post by **tkaye** » 08 Feb 2007 22:38

marshd1000 wrote:Many of them were former Tradewells that were reformatted.

The ones that were newly constructed as Prairie Markets (that I'm familiar with) were built on some real stinker properties... the stores were practically invisible from the main thoroughfare to which they were adjacent.

The store in East Bremerton (4173 Wheaton Way) was actually several hundred feet from the street and hidden behind a lumber yard. The only access to this building is only from a long driveway.

In Tacoma, the store at 6305 Sixth Ave. was also several hundred feet off the street, behind Tower Lanes and later a McDonalds. In South Tacoma, there was a store at 3001 S. 36th St., obscured from 38th by a White Front (later Valu-Mart) store and from Pine by an electrical substation.

Were their new locations in Seattle like that? I know that the Bremerton store and the Sixth Avenue store were both built by the same developer, who still owns both properties.

VibeGuy · Post by **VibeGuy** » 20 Feb 2007 06:01

The two Seattle-area locations that come to my mind are the White Center location (not so white, not so centered), at 17th and Roxbury, near what is now the Salvadorean Bakery and Schucks Auto Supply. There is still a (very) faint outline of the Prairie Market logotype on the white rectangular sign in the parking lot. Very prime space. The other location would be in Federal Way, which was later a Value Village and is now a Grocery Outlet store. Very prime Hwy 99 frontage.

Prairie Market in Astoria, OR didn't get fresh produce and meat until the 80s; it's now a Coast Guard Exchange.

Eric

timbabcock · Post by **timbabcock** » 18 Mar 2007 22:38

Another thing that was missing out of quite a few of the Prairie Market stores was a meat department. Usually the former Tradewell stores had the meat sections but the concrete stores never did.

There were no windows on most of the original stores. They were concrete boxes with these industrial type automatic doors. They were very unusual doors.

For some reason the one in Federal Way, Washington was call Family Market but it was the same thing. I don't know why they gave that store a special name.

Tradewell was the owner of the chain of stores. Tradewell was originally started by Lamont Bean who owned the Pay & Save stores (along with Ernst, Malmo, Lamonts, and Sportswest). They would explain why the block logo was similar to Pay & Save and Ernst. In the 60s they were sold to other owners and their headquarters was in Kent, Washington. Prairie Market started in the 1970s when there was a demand for no frills grocery stores. During the 80s they became part of Associated Grocers. Prairie Market was shut down in 1985 while they tried to keep the Tradewell name by remodeling some of the existing stores into upscale grocery store.

Tradewell was gone by late 1980's. Most of the remaining stores were sold to Associated Grocer member store to become Thriftways.