The thing that I miss most about the old grocery stores is the coffee aisle. I can still remember the smell of freshly ground beans from the grinders that every store had.
@@jasontodd8071 in 1967-1970, my full time summer job and part time school year job was at a Safeway store in Alaska. I remember clearly removing items from the grocery cart, then ringing up every item on the cash register, by hand. A couple of times there was a power outage, at which time we entered a cost into the cash register, then hand cranked the register so we could enter the next item. Those were the days when the check out clerks actually worked.
@@kevinkool3 I'm not kidding: I always keep some tissue in my pocket for when I enter Lucky's, to pack inside my ears. Whoever picks their "music" is obviously the same crowd that picks TV programming: 12-year-old boys. But it's the nearest supermarket.
My dad was employed by A&P for 40+ years so seeing grocery chains close is especially sad for me. A&P was an important part of my childhood and adolescence. I learned loyalty to the hand that feeds you. Today-not so much.
Shopping the A&P in my southern hometown with my grandparents and parents is still embedded in my childhood memory! And the smell of roasted coffee is forever with me. Sadly, townhouses now occupy the A&P of my childhood years. But the neighborhood thrives 50 years running.
My brother jut retired after 45y of service with the grocery store, it was the only job he ever had in his life (started at 16y). Who now stays for 40y+ at one job today?????
Oh yes! I used to hate running errands with my mom when I was a little kid unless it was grocery shopping. At the end of the cashier's lane, there always was a coffee bean grinder and all customers could have their beans ground however they liked. The aroma was absolutely heavenly and one that I still recall fondly.
@@bradtorville5526 My brother & I would pick up and suck the stray beans that fell out of the grinders at A&P. Dad liked that super dark roast Bokar brand, so we got a fair amount of caffeine before we even started drinking Mountain Dew!
Another reason to build that time machine! Having 20 different kinds of cereal or anything else isn't necessarily a good idea. I'm a kid of the 70s and think some things were indeed better then
Canned spaghetti (Franco American or Chef Boy Ar Dee) was mostly solid food. Nowadays it's 40% sauce. The TV dinners (Swanson, Hungry Man), in foil cartons, were more generous (for the money), than today's more nutritional, fancy frozen meals (Stouffers, Boston Market, Weight Watcher).
That sounds to me like the natural consequence of a shift in economic policy from emphasis on demand-side principles to emphasis on supply-side principles.
1970s America when food hit Rock bottom. It was FULL of preservatives. Butter was white etc. Now in New york and California you can buy real food like raw milk, heirloom tomatoes, grassfed lamb and golden butter!!
In Slidell, Louisiana, when I was growing up, the three main grocery stores we shopped that were ANP Albertson’s and Schwegman‘s. Spackmans and a NP disappeared first then Albertson’s disappeared.
A lot of people are probably unaware that grocers operate on very thin profit margins, for the most part. That's why volume is so important; there was some groaning when a number of chains reported record profits during the first year of COVID, but people were buying so much more from the stores and not eating out as much.
Thin profit margins? My @$$.. why can a item that's $.88 late one year go on "rollback" the next for $1.25 and a new shelf price of $1.58, jump to $2.08 during the pandemic, and the vendors plant is less than 10 miles away, and never more than 8 bottles of a variety are stocked for some, with filling the shelves missed many times. If the stores and vendors did their jobs I wouldn't have to stop in 8 stores over 200 miles total for a month's supply at home, we're not talking a commercial buy. And the vendor goes to two different towns within 15 miles to stock two stores, so it's a greed on BOTH sides, suppliers and retailers.
@@Stache987 I think you're confusing wholesale costs with retail prices and somehow translating that to profits. Do some web searching (not definitive, but it's the tool we've got) and you will see numbers for the industry ranging from 1-3% (lots of reporting on 2.2%, but no idea of the provenance of that metric). Not a lot of a cushion if things start to go south, that's for sure. FWIW
When the local PathMark was about to close, my Auntie Ozella had me drive her over so that she could get her hands on every single paper shopping bag as she claimed that they were part of the secret of her amazing fried anything. The item about to be fried HAD to be shaken with the dry ingredients in a PathMark bag...no Piggly Wiggly, no Food Lion, and God forbid Winn Dixie. I think whoever has currently inherited the stash is still going through the bags...
That’s pretty cool. Thanks for sharing that little bit of your family’s “traditions.” It’s always fun to read stuff like that. I married into a country boy’s family and my MIL (of blessed memory) used to make everything from scratch. And what she prepared only got fixed with certain ingredients and nothing else! Like Clabber Girl baking powder! Any time they were getting ready to head into a big snowstorm my MIL would say “Nick go to the store and get milk and cigarettes (this was before they both quit).” He would finish his coffee and off he’d go. My MIL didn’t drive until she was 50. They never worried about running out of bread or whatever. She made all of it.
In some ways it wasn’t better like for minorities but I just mean on a more general level. There was more individual freedom, prosperity, opportunity, fun, more optimism about the future. Maybe because people were more naive about certain things. Like what was really going on in the world and our government’s corruption.
I don’t know… ALL of those things were just in a different form then and now. I feel like there’s more opportunity now, and even more naivety now (artificial intelligence is NOT our friend and people seem to be actually running towards NWO “benefits” that will be our demise, the same people that closed their eyes then are still here today but worse yet have more opportunity and yet have everything at their fingertips…. for now)
A&P was prominent in the Northeast part of the country and there were a lot of them in the New York area. I would go with my grandmother when I was a little kid in the early 60s and always liked the old wood floors and tin ceilings. And the smell of coffee beans being fresh ground wafting through the store. Jeez that was over 60 years ago...
There was an A&P in Kentucky in the 70s and maybe early 80s. We heard rumors that it was owned by the mafia. Maybe if it was that big in NY, the rumor was true…..
I remember Pathmark. My father retired and my mother went to work in the mid-seventies. My mother used to send me out on my bike to buy a couple bags of groceries every week. I had large baskets for delivering newspapers. It was 2 mi and riding through the congested center of town at 14yo. During the week, I was responsible for getting dinner in the oven as my older sister worked and this way dinner was done by the time mother got home.
You're from NJ or NY? I went on family shopping trips there. I moved decades ago, but just for curiosity I looked up Pathmark. They went belly-up in 2015, but came back, sort of, with one store.
My wife worked Pathmark HQ back in the 70's for about 10 years. She collects a (very tiny) pension from them. Our local Pathmark store was the first with scanners it was in all the papers and TV news.
I live in Detroit,Michigan and I still remember when Detroit had 6 supermarket chain stores. They were: 1. A&P 2. Chatham Complete Food Centers 3. Farmer Jack Supermarkets 4. Great Scott !Supermarkets 5. Kroger 6. Wrigley's Supermarkets. Detroit's supermarket chain stores either closed permanently,merged with national supermarket chain stores,or went out of business. The,only supermarket chain stores left are: 1. Kroger 2. Meijer 3. Wal-Mart I miss the supermarket chain stores from back in the day. This,is the best that I could remember about the supermarket chain stores from the past years. I remember,when Chatham Complete Food Centers opened a store located on Van Dyke and Engelman in Center Line. This,would be in the Van Dyke and 10 Mile Road area. After,when Chatham Complete Food Centers closed permanently,then an independent supermarket named Shoppers Market took over the old Chatham Store. Shoppers Market closed permanently. Now,Cattleman's took over the old Chatham/Shoppers Market Store over and Cattleman's is still open to this very day.
Born in Cincinnati in 1880, William H. Albers in 1928 became president of the Kroger chain as it expanded from 190 to 5,600 stores, mostly in Ohio, Kentucky and Michigan. In 1933 he set out on his own, founding Albers Super Markets Inc.
Loving these forgotten grocery store videos! Kudos! So many memories of me being with my grandma in the early 70’s here in So. Cal. Market Basket, Alpha Beta and Lucky’s! All forgotten memories!
Where I lived in CA, a small Alpha-Beta was bought by Lucky's down the street, and continued as a Lucky's. Eventually the extra store was a Walgreens. Then Albertson bought Lucky---The employees were not happy with the new management. From my perspective, Albertson's was a grocery "Macys," buying up other local and regional stores.
When episodes were taped in the New York metropolitan area. They taped at other chains when they did shows in other parts of the country. I've heard that the most recent (2019) version was taped at a then newly opened Safeway store in Santa Monica, California. Is that true?
I grew up in MN with Red Owl. Once we visited CA to see family back then and I thought it was so weird that we were at a VONS a store I’d never heard of in my life before that. And I was saying, why didn’t we go to Red Owl? Why don’t we go to VONS at home? I guess I didn’t realize different states had different grocers as a child
I don't remember any either although Pantry Pride sounds familiar. My mother shopped once a month at the base maybe that's why I don't recognize these names.
My Dad would sometimes take me to the grocery for shopping when Mom was too busy. He would always head straight for the fruit section and snatch grapes from the bunches and eat them. I was always scared we were going to get in trouble, but he'd laugh and say they don't care.😆
I'd do the same with my Dad on a Saturday or Sunday. There were big square clear plastic bins with individually wrapped caramels. Dark ones and light ones. My Dad would always take 1 for me and 1 for him and I always worried about it too!
@@marygoodson4920 There used to be Brachs candy displaces everywhere, you would scoop the candy into a bag and weigh it. I noticed recently my grocery store doesn't even had a scale anymore to weigh things. Everything is pre-wrapped in plastic.
As a resident of Columbus OH for the last 31 years, I am well acquainted with the Big Bear chain. I remember particularly two stores; one at Great Southern Shopping Center (which expanded into a larger building in the 90s) and the one in the middle of German Village. Sadly, after 2004 both had closed their doors. The German Village location became a Giant Eagle store (which itself closed a few years back; the building was torn down and the property is currently being remade into a multi-use structure), while the Great Southern location closed and the building remained empty for a few years; it is now an Ollies (similar to Big Lots) Retail Outlet.
Finally someone talks about Big Bear. I LOVED that store as a kid for some reason. Every once in awhile my mom would let my brother and I get this donut/pastry they had called a dreamboat. It feels like it was the best donut I’ve ever had, but I haven’t had one since the 80’s so it could just be nostalgia.
@@tristanwwsd Big Bear in Ohio would not have been associated with stores in California. I worked for Big Bear during the 1990's and all of the stores were in Ohio and West Virginia. When the Brown family sold the chain it was purchased by a company called Penn Traffic that had 4 other chains in New York and Pennsylvania.
The first Big Bear store was on Lane Avenue in Columbus just north of the Ohio State University near Ohio Stadium. They actually had a bear in a cage out front (different times).
@@tristanwwsd I thought about that as well. There was a Big Bear at the corner of Catalina and Canon at the top of the hill between P.L. and OB.It was gone by the early 90's. A side note, three other grocery stores that left San Diego were Mayfair , Safeway , and Alpha Beta....Aloha
I remember Schwegmanns as a kid growing up in New Orleans! I think they even had a place like a bar where the men could sit and drink beer while the wife shopped. I was little so I could be wrong. The store my mom and dad went to was in Gentilly I think. Anyway, thanks for the memories, God bless you and yours always and thanks again for everything you do!
YOU NOT WRONG ABOUT THE BEER.THEIR CHILI AND HOT DOGS PO-BOY WERE TO DIED FOR.I LOVED THEIR TOY SECTION IN GENTILLY STORE. I STILL MISS THEM STORES. GOD BLESS
We used to go to that same store, the one on Chef Menteur next to the Industrial Canal, in the '60s. I don't know if it had a bar, but it had a second-level mezzanine with a barber shop, shoe repair, an accountant office, and a lot of other stuff like that. It being New Orleans, I wouldn't be surprised if it had a bar. It was ahead of its time with the superstore concept.
Great video! I worked at a Big Bear store in Columbus in the late 80's. My mother and grandmother were loyal to this store until they closed. I still remember the highlight of every shopping trip ... getting to pick the breakfast cereal and Kool Aid flavors. Of course, my cereal selection had much to do with who had the coolest toy in the box.
Walmart Superstores killed Eagle Country Market here locally in Peoria, Illinois in the mid 90s. I loved going shopping with my Mom there of course. It was a great store to me. I miss it 😢
We shopped at 4 stores when I was a kid in the 70s. King Cole, Market Basket, Zoddy's and Gemco. The first 2 where independent neighborhood stores. Gemco was a membership super store that doubled as both a grocery store and a department store. Zoddy's was mostly a department store that sold limited grocery essentials. These stores were located in Whittier, Santa Fe Springs and Downey California. All of these stores were either closed or bought out by the mid 90s.
Pathmark was a star among grocery chains back in the 70' and 80's. They were innovators of the SuperStore concept, which included pharmacies and banking in many branches. With 160 stores in the CT, NYC/Long Island, New Jersey and eastern PA, area, their gross sales were in excess of 2 billion dollars at their peak. No other grocery chain in America came close to those per store numbers. However, the end began in 1987 when the ageing owners who were the major shareholders, had to get their final estates in order, since their children had no interest in the business,. They went to Merrill Lynch and arranged for a "management" led Leveraged Buy Out (LBO). To transfer the wealth to the existing shareholders in part, an 800 million dollar bridge loan was created. The bulk of the remaining debt was structured as subordinated debenture bonds (junk bonds) at an interest rate of 13.5%. coming due in the early 90's. The result was those of us who opted in the sale of our stock, made out extremely well. Those who did not liquidate their stock became the bond holders. Austerity measures were taken immediately to pay down the bridge loan. This meant there were no funds for investing in the business, instead cut backs and layoffs began. It was a downhill spiral until the bonds needed to be paid upon and that is what killed the company. I have very fond memories of Pathmark/Super Markets General Company. They were the sharpest tool in the shed of marketing at that time. I was proud to be associated with them for a number of years. They were a top drawer company. But I understand how the largest shareholders had to get their estate planning in order and allowed a management buyout of the company to go forward, hoping those who were left would enjoy the future fruits of the company. But the debt load and the cessation of innovation due to no financing to do so, sealed the fate of the company.
My cousin got her part time job at Pathmark in HS 77. Kept all thru college & eventually was a store manager. She did sell stock, big wedding & honeymoon to Hawaii.
Pathmark was seen by many as a lower tier discount grocery store and most popular in or near cities. In the late 1970's, they offered 'generic' or 'no-frills', black and white labeled packages. They also had a 'catalog showroom' company for a while - catalogs and shelf display of items for sale, you would place your order at a counter and it would be brought to you from a back storage area.
People from outside the area do not understand how amazing Schwegmann's was. It was an amazing store, and a pleasant event every time. It was the precursor to Super Centers. They had a bank, a restaurant, a bakery (McKenzie's), a cobbler, a dry cleaner, etc... inside of the store. They baked the best bread, and the layout made sense. People back home still reminisce about the place we "made groceries." Making Groceries Schwegmann' style!
I'm just old enough to remember ashtrays on shopping carts in the early 80s and everyone smoked while shopping. Almost inside of any store smelled like cigarettes, same with hospitals, I barely remember the doctor smoking while telling my mom that her mom just died of cancer. It was a different world back then.
Thank you for this second video. I remember seeing Red Owl stores, but the Eagle grocery store chain I remember quite well, as i grew up in Northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. For some towns in that area, Eagle was the only real chain grocery store around, or maybe 1 of 2 in the area. My family shopped at Eagle on several occasions and miss seeing them around when we go back to those areas to visit. I remember Furr's around the Kansas City area as being chain of cafeteria restaurants, probably the ones run by K-Mart as you mentioned.
Red Owl was one of the stores of my youth, so it is nice to see what happened to it. There are 3 others that I have not heard what happened to them. They are National Tea, Piggly Wiggly and Warehouse Market.
National folded in the late 80's and became part of the Canadian Loblaws chain, which used the National name until Loblaws shut it down in the early 90's. An attempt to revive the brand in the St. Louis area lasted a couple of years, with most of the Nationals being purchased by Schnucks. The Pig is alive as a franchise operation, based in New Hampshire. It still has a number of locations across the Southeast, and a number of stores in Wisconsin.
I loved it when my dad would take me to the Warehouse Market!! I almost forgot it! It probably wasn't that big by today's standards, but it seemed huge.
We left Chicago in 1961 and all I remember from there were Jewell and Eagle. I remember a grand opening at an Eagle store. It was a big deal. Everyone showed up like it was a baseball game or something. I guess they had special pricing on the first days after opening. I don't remember any of the others in this video as we moved to CA in 1961. Then it was Ralphs, Alpha Beta, Albertsons and Vons. It's funny how regional grocery stores are.
Does anyone remember Colonial Stores? I worked as a bag boy/stock clerk/ truck un-loader in one while in high school in the late 1960's. I think it must have been mainly a southern grocery chain. Later, (I think it must have been in the late 70's) it was replaced by Big Star and that was replaced by a Kroger.
I worked at the one in Athens GA. Bag boys had to wear black pants, white shirt and black tie. Cashiers had matching dress uniforms. When putting up stock, I could take the tie off. We always took our customers' groceries out to the car even if they had only one bag. It was a different era.
Weird so many grocery stores go bankrupt in America. Here in Australia it’s almost unknown. Mind you we are dominated by 5 chains only(Cole’s, Woolworths, IGA, Foodworks & Aldi).
It is the nature of the grocery store business in the US - they operate on thin margins and they need to have good management. When the big chains like Kroger and Safeway show up, it is difficult for most small grocery chains, whether local or regional, to survive, although some do through really good management and the loyalty of enough of their customer base.
I love Aldi’s here, in the US! They have the best prices on everything, and they carry more unusual items that are hard to find elsewhere. They also have the cheapest gluten free stuff.
@Banter Maestro2 many of the IGA and Foodworks supermarkets are actually franchises so are technically independently owned often by families. Have we lost some; yes. But we still have a very healthy green grocery segment (fruit, vegetables) owned by non and pops and we also have a lot of delis as well that sell from dairy to cheeses to meats. There’s still a huge number of individually owned butchers as well. In my small town of 2,500 we have 2 butcher shops, 3 green groceries. a deli and a standard large supermarket.
Thank you for making these videos. I'm not American, but watching these videos still makes me feel nostalgic and dream about olden times. The designs, the people, the clothes, the cars - it all looks so pretty looking back.
One of my memories from college is that a guy in our dorm, who was from New Jersey, brought a bottle of Chivas Regal with him for his for his first semester. By the end of the semester, it was almost gone. For the following semester, he brought down a bottle of Pathmark house brand Scotch. When the bottle of Chivas was finally empty, someone in the dorm emptied the Pathmark Scotch into the empty Chivas bottle. Nobody ever knew trhe difference!
I forgot about Dominick’s. There were a lot in the Chicagoland area. I had been there years ago they were a nice store. Where I live Eagle Foods was once the primary store. We had a County Market many years ago too and I see they still exist in a few places. Jewel and HyVee are the primary stores where I live now but Fareway and Aldi are strong to those who prefer small stores. We have a Fresh Thyme as well and I frequent there. I have worked at Fareway and currently at a HyVee. I personally prefer the smaller stores and do most of my shopping there. Their overhead is lower and their prices are generally better too.
Air Force Brat here, we always shopped at the commissary, but one summer I went to visit my uncle in Chicago. My cousins and I would walk to the nearest grocery store and I remember 2 distinctly: Jewels and Dominick’s. Definitely brings back great memories. We broke my cousins piggy bank (literally) and spent over $20 bucks on candy that summer. And you know back in the early 70’s that was a lot of candy 😂
@@carolineconnor2156 My Grandparents were Veterans and shopped the commissary on Rock Island Arsenal Island. I used to like to go there and went along with them sometimes.
I love grocery stores and today its Walmart mostly. I love the pictures and the old cars and stuff …definitely going to grocery stores was an experience back in the day , I loved it 😊
Watched part one and was Surprised that there was no mention of *Grand Union*. Maybe a part 3 With them and... Umm Stop&Shop? I do remember Grand Unions soda brand very well: *Penguin Soda* back when you needed a can opener. The Best flavors were Black Cherry, Cream and Grape!
This video really hits home for me because growing up back in the 70s and 80s my Dad worked for Nabisco here in Florida, and I used to go help him in the stores. I remember Pantry Pride, Grand Union, Pic n Pay, Albertsons, Sun, Extra, and Basics. So many are gone now but I will always have good memories of those places 🤔
I can remember when the Chicago market had Jewel, National, A&P, Kroger, Dominick's, and Certified (a co-op of independent grocers). It was common for 2 grocery stores to be in walking distance of each other. One strip mall near my parents' house had A&P and Kroger, which later became Dominick's, when Kroger sold its Chicago stores to Dominick's and left the market.
Our Pantry Pride always seemed to be the Sad Sack runner up to Winn Dixie. Moot point as neither exists anymore --there may be some WINOs left...Winn Dixie in Name Only.
I used to deliver to stores in Reading Pa in the 1970's. Competition was fierce with 2 Pantry Pride stores, 2 Weis Markets, a Shoprite, at least 2 Acme and a Food Lane on the fairgrounds site, all within a couple of miles. Pantry Pride were struggling then and began closing their smaller outlets. Used to share lots of laughter with the staff and managers, they were happy times despite the recession.
I miss the days when there were no barcodes, and checkout girls had to know how to enter exact amounts into the register with manual keys. If the power went out they just used a flashlight and kept going.
I remember Kash n Karry. It could never hold a candle to Publix. Same as Winn-Dixie. Same as Albertson's. Same as Food World. Same as Walmart Neighborhood Market. There is a reason Publix is still here, and as strong as ever.
Awesome video.💖 I remember me and my mom going to Finast when I was a young girl that was my favorite store to go to, it has been turned in an Autozone, everytime I walk by that area I remember it once being a Finast supermarket.💖 TFS
I used to shop at PathMark in Brooklyn off 2nd Ave. near Lowe's. Miss that place. Truly one stop shopping. There were other stores inside like a Kroger Citi-Center.
Not a grocery store, but I still miss Burger Chef restaurants. I still remember the commercials from the early 70’s in Colorado Springs. They would have toys you got with a child’s meal (maybe the original “Happy Meal” concept?) and the ads on TV told you what you could get that week, singing “That’s what you get at Burger Chef, that’s what you get today.” I have scoured RU-vid looking for these commercials but have never been able to find any. 😢
Born I 60 I want to see and hear that 1966 cash register along with the motorized bag mover of course giving away blue chip stamps ,but I can still imagine it ,the one I don’t recall and really would like is to see the store opening swing doors you would think and they would be motorized ,but something just way more different , me and sis would go around and around sometimes,just different ,Greatest generation to have lived 60’s 70’s and early 80’s
I,live in Detroit,Michigan and I still remember when Great Scott!Supermarkets gave S&H Green Stamps,Kroger gave Top Value Trading Stamps and Wrigley's Supermarkets gave Gold Bell Trading Stamps.
Did anyone else get Funk and Wagnels encyclopedias through the A&P? I believe they sold individual books every month. If you shopped there long enough, you could collect the entire encyclopedia from A-Z.
I loved learning about grocery stores outside of NJ. Was also glad you included one, Pathmark. I do remember my mom shopping at ShopRite, and later years Pathmark tried to win customers away from Pathmark. We loved going shopping as kids….the ride-on’s near the exits (horses, etc). I remember my family bought our kitchen plates set and silverware set from a seller inside Shoprite. I remember their can can sale and mascot, Scrunchy Bear! Wondering if Shoprite is the only grocery store to ever offer babysitting while parents shopped in Scrunchy’s Playhouse??? Would enjoy seeing Laneco mentioned in a future video.
We had a Furr's Cafeteria in Bellflower Ca, on the same property as a K-Mart. The Furr's here was a all you can eat buffet open for lunch and dinner. The food was good but not spectacular. If you were hungry and low on cash it was a better option than Denny's. It closed in the early 2000s and has been different restaurants since then. The K-mart is now a Target...
I loved cafeteria style restaurants. Great for those on a budget and still wanted to eat out. I miss them. There is still a cafeteria style restaurant I visit in Asheville, NC when in the area. I live on the west coast. Remember Hollander Cafeteria?
@@naomiemoore5725 I don't remember Hollander, but we had Cliffton's. Instead of converting into a all you can eat buffet, they stayed with the original format. Charging separately for every item. For example.. Roast turkey...$3 Mashed potatoes...60 cents Corn...50 cents Roll...35 cents Drinks...$2 Desserts $2-$3 They had servers at each station and they put your items on the plate then you paid and sat in the dining room...
@@vistalite-ph4zw Yup, I remember! Wish they would bring them back. I loved them when I was super busy at work, I could pop over at lunch time and pick up something for my dinner that evening without costing an arm and a leg . . . Now I batch cook and have stuff in the freezer than I can thaw in the fridge during the day and toss up a simple salad and microwave my dinner. Much healthier option than fast food.
@@naomiemoore5725 yes indeed I agree. I'm retired now but I would buy a large bag of lettuce, chicken, and bacon bits from Sam's Club. Make salads for all week, easy, affordable, healthy, and avoiding fast food...🍔🍟🥤
@@vistalite-ph4zw I am right behind you! Do the same thing. I still work and my hours are crazy and no set schedule. So when I do take a day off, I prepare grab and go type meals, even if I am home, can have something nutritious. I still shop and cook for my remaining bubble buddies from the height of the pandemic. Costco and Sam's Club are wonderful. I also have a couple small independent grocers and a few decent farmers markets that have phenomenal deals on fruit and vegetables. Makes life easier as everything across the board has become very expensive. Makes my dollar stretch a bit more. Gas is $6+ and it's killing me even though I don't drive as much as I used to. I take my dogs to work with me so I can't use public transportation - Uber and Lyft people won't take me either. If they get a passenger that is allergic, they lose the money. I understand completely. Crazy world we live in now.
Food Fair was my 1st job! I was home from college, and was paid the minimum wage, $1.60 an hour. Happily, the Post Office called 3 1/2 weeks later, and I quit Food Fair. I earned $2.44 an hour there, which was a great wage for a kid turning 19, at the end of August! I paid my Fall Quarter, at SUNY New Paltz, with money which I saved that Summer! Pretty good for a 19 year old, in 1967!
There were "no frills" and "warehouse" type grocery stores in the late 1970's/early 1980's, which opened as an answer to the problem of food inflation then. The stores had plain, spartan decor, carried mainly generic and store brand items, as well as a limited selection of national brands. Some stores sold products directly out of the cartons, and offered crayons so you could mark the price. (This was before scanners.) You also used the store's empty boxes to carry your groceries in, or you brought your own bags (or bought bags for 5 cents or 10 cents a piece.) Some such stores only carried non-perishable items-no dairy, meats, frozen food, or produce. These stores fell out of favor with customers by the mid to late 1980's, but they did pave the way for stores such as Aldi and Save-A-Lot.
I grew up in NOLA area and remember going with my Mama to Schweggmens. They had everything and were huge. Sad when they closed. Thanks for these videos.
What ticked me off as a kid living Coshocton Ohio was when giant eagle and others were divvying up the big bear stores. Ours wasn’t apart of it and we got stuck with a very expensive small chain store, aldi, an IGA which was basically a bank for people with no checking accounts. And Walmart. I hated it. I really miss big bear😢
I remember Food Fair and Pantry Pride in York/Hanover PA, and Pathmark in Wilmington, Delaware ....thanks for the memory! My main store was A&P in Hanover, PA from 1956-1972 when I left home and became an adult!
I grew up with Farmer Jack stores and worked there in the 90's. It is a shame that these quality markets are gone now. We still have Kroger and Aldis for the smaller markets. Meijer and Walmart are my only option now. Too big for alot of older people to shop in. Thanks for the video .
Oh man Farmer Jack was one of parent’s favorite grocery stores back in the day I remember many occasions where we would go and get all kinds of produce during the summer
Growing up in Houston, TX back in the 70’s and 80’s, we had the grocery stores Minimax, Gerlands Food Fair (where I worked for a time) and Handy Andy, that are no longer around.
I loved PathMark going there was a treat feeling like we had lots of money. There will never be anything as nice and simple as going to a corner store and walking home with a brown paper bag
I had recently wondered about Farmer Jack. My grandmothers closest grocery store. It was at Middlebelt and W 14 Mile Rd in West Bloomfield, MI. I just checked Google Maps and it is a Johnny Pomodoro’s Market now and the location looks well kept.
I think my dad was the only one who was sad when Furr's cafeteria finally went under. He'd always take us there to eat. Food was ok but they still used those red bubble cups that were popular in the 80s and 90s.
I had several family members who worked for supermarkets in the 50s, 60s and 70s in NJ the Food Fair chain unfortunately stayed too long in Reading Philadelphia and Camden. By the time they opened up in suburbia they were already hurting, being in cities that were riddled with crime. They actually had armed guards in their urban stores in the 70s. Sad, nobody wants to shop under those circumstances , employees would get dropped off and picked up so they didn't have to drive through the worst part of the city, or park and leave your car all day.
According to Wikipedia, First National had their origin in Somerville, MA not Somerset, MA. This would make sense, since they say that they were initially concentrated in the Boston area. Somerville is a suburb of Boston. Somerset is in the Southeastern part of MA, closer to Rhode Island than Boston. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finast
First National was owned by the original owners of the Boston Bruins, the descendants of the Adams Presidential Family. The brown & gold on the original Bruins uniforms were also the store colors. The switch to black & gold occurred after WWII.
I miss Furr's to this day. We ate at one of the Furr's Cafeteria's once a week when I was growing up, and shopped at the Furr's grocery store in the photo. The grocery stores were gone years ago, but the cafeterias closed slowly, until the last one in my city closed only a couple of years ago, given the coup de grace by Covid. I'm so impressed that you included Furr's in this video!
In my hometown of Dickinson ND, we had three different locations for Red Owl, one from before I came along in downtown, two when I was young, one in Big Sky Shopping Center(Now the T-Rex Mall) and one on the southside converted later into Fairway Foods, and then after the closure as a grocery store, it was a church until the 2009 Dickinson Tornado.
I was a truck driver for FINAST in the 1970's. Their headquarters and main distribution center was in Somerville, MA, not Somerset, MA. They also had distribution warehouse's in E. Hartford, Conn., Portland, ME. and Carney, NJ.
I am stunned to learn that Pathmark is no longer around that was the store for everything I went there as a child simply saddening is really the only thing that comes to mind.
I used to work at Farmer Jack's - Five years when going to school. - Store 144 Redford Twp. Michigan. Well done video. Thanks for making this video. • Cheers from the Detroit & Mackinac Railway 🚂
