Grocery Archaeology

Original Grocery Tenant: SuperFresh Address: 4357 Swamp Rd, Doylestown, PA Opened:  1987 Closed:  2009 Later Tenants:  GIANT Food Stores (2009-2021) Photographed:  December 28, 2021 We are here to check out the former Doylestown GIANT, which was built as a SuperFresh in 1987. The roughly 50,000 square foot store was sold to GIANT Food Stores in 2009, which renovated and reopened it. The facade, however, remains from the store's days as a SuperFresh. The new store opened just weeks before I visited, meaning I saw the old store immediately after its closure. I assume it's no longer so intact. Because when I took a look inside, it looked like they basically shut off the lights and called it a day... There's only so many places I could get a good view of the interior, but when I could see in, I could see that the supermarket was fully intact back there. A smaller window in front of what was the beer and wine department gives us a slightly better view of the interior, since th

Original Grocery Tenant: Country Food Market Address: 203 W State St, Doylestown, PA Opened:  unknown Closed:  unknown Later Tenants:  still Country Food Market; no longer a food store Photographed:  July 22, 2021 Well folks, today's store is a rather strange one. Anyone can look at this picture and know immediately that wasn't originally a food store; it was a diner . And a Jerry O'Mahony diner no less, manufactured in our favorite, Elizabeth, New Jersey. (For readers who may not be aware, Elizabeth is the city all of my family is from.) But it later became a florist shop and then the Country Food Market, a small convenience store. It's directly across the street from yesterday's Simply Fresh . Interestingly enough, it seems that McCaffrey's has actually bought this store and it's now more of a tobacco/news store, since I suppose it's redundant for McCaffrey's to have another grocery store right across the street. It still confuses me, though, sin

  We have taken a brief look at northwestern Bucks and Montgomery counties, and now we're going to move through the northeastern segments of these counties from south (Warminster area) to north (Ottsville area). This one will be a little longer than the northwestern sections, and we'll be spending around a month in this part of the state before moving on to the Lehigh Valley. We'll be making stops in Warminster, Warrington, New Britain, Doylestown (where we'll spend a little more than a week), New Hope, Point Pleasant, Plumsteadville, Dublin, Perkasie, Ottsville, Quakertown, and Pennsburg. Most of those are very small towns where we'll only spend a day or two, with about a week and a half in Doylestown. Let's start with a post on The Market Report tomorrow in Warminster! Did you see all of this weekend's updates and special reports? If not, check them out here... Special Report: Green Life Market - Wayne, NJ Special Report: SuperFresh (future) - Downtown Cl

Original Grocery Tenant: A&P Address: 514 Van Houten Ave, Passaic, NJ Opened:  1970s Closed:  unknown Later Tenants:  Food Basics (closed 2016) > Gala Fresh Farms (2016-2018) Photographed:  January 5, 2023 We are returning to the former Passaic Gala Fresh Farms /Food Basics/A&P on Van Houten Avenue for a quick look at what the store is like today. Unfortunately, the roughly 30,000 square foot store has been subdivided into three spaces rather than being left intact, and even more unfortunately, two of those three spaces have been taken by dollar stores, with Family Dollar and Dollar Tree each taking around 10,000 square feet. (I don't particularly like any dollar store, and certainly not one of these Family Dollar-Dollar Tree combo stores.) The good news is that part of this building will become a SuperFresh. I mentioned this on yesterday's post about the upcoming Clifton SuperFresh , and this will be Passaic's second SuperFresh . It's not clear to me exact

Original Tenant: ACME Markets Address: 1507 Lititz Pk, Lancaster, PA Opened:  1960s Closed:  1982 Later Tenants:  Rea & Derick (1983-1991) > CVS (1991- ) Photographed:  August 20, 2019 We should all be able to tell right away who the original tenant here on Lititz Pike north of downtown Lancaster was! The 19,000 square foot pitched-roof store was built as an ACME in the 1960s. I'm surprised that the facade hasn't been renovated more since CVS has been here, but it's still looking a lot like it once did as an ACME. JoshAustin610 provides some more detail on the history of this store location, noting that it closed in 1982. There's no more ACME here, but there is a Weis about 3/4 of a mile west, a Whole Foods about 1/4 of a mile west, and a GIANT slightly less than that to the north. The latter is where we're headed tomorrow on The Market Report !

  Welcome to the Lancaster, PA area! Coloquially referred to as  Pennsylvania Dutch Country , the area's Amish population has made it well-known as a tourism and agricultural area. We're going to be taking a look at some of the supermarkets in this area, which are a fascinating variety. We're going to start in Downingtown to the southeast, which is roughly equidistant (30 miles or so) from the city centers of Philadelphia and Lancaster, a small to midsized city of about 60,000. Then we're headed northwest to Morgantown, through New Holland roughly halfway between Morgantown and Lancaster, and then into the city of Lancaster itself. From there, we'll be making a northward trek through Lititz, Akron, Ephrata, and then finally Denver. Denver brings us within about 10 miles of Reading, PA, which will be our next group. It's going to be a really interesting group here, with a sampling of Philadelphia suburb-style supermarkets in Downingtown, country supermarkets with

Original Tenant: Shop n Bag Address: 2134 Street Rd, Bensalem, PA Opened:  1960s/70s Closed:  ca. early 1980s Later Tenants:  Food Check (1980s-late 1980s) > Staples (1988-2003) > Office Depot (2006-2010) > Bottom Dollar Food (2011-2015) > Jerusalem Furniture (2016- ) Photographed:  December 28, 2021 An obvious former Bottom Dollar Food location here in Bensalem has become a furniture store for the past five years or so. Check out the full history here and here . The 21,000 square foot store has a lot of similarities to the Cinnaminson location we saw not too long ago. There's also a Redner's a little under half a mile west, and an Amazon Fresh coming soon about a quarter of a mile southeast, not to mention a GIANT about 3/4 of a mile north and other assorted markets closer, so there's a lot of competition around here. Tomorrow, we continue our westward trek, this time moving about five miles northwest to our next stop in Feasterville-Trevose on The Independ

Original Tenant: Pathmark Address: 500 Lincoln Hwy, Fairless Hills, PA Opened:  1994 Closed:  2015 Later Tenants:  Funzilla Photographed:  January 6, 2020 We arrive at the former Fairless Hills Pathmark, another 1990s build store of roughly 60,000 square feet. Pathmark moved from an original Supermarkets General-owned ShopRite that converted to Pathmark in 1968 across the parking lot in 1994. These days, I believe the store has been subdivided with the bulk going to Funzilla, an indoor playground trampoline thingy. As we see, the facade has not been renovated in any way other than paint and new signage. Up next we're heading to the south a little bit to go over to Bristol, right on the river. Check out our next store on The Independent Edition !

  I try to gather my stores into groups that make sense geographically, but in this case the only thing I could come up with is stores clustered around the interstate, route 276, between Morrisville and Audubon! We will be starting on the eastern side in Morrisville and making stops in Fairless Hills, Bristol, Bensalem, Feasterville-Trevose, Horsham, Dresher, Ambler, Lafayette Hill, Conshohocken, Norristown, West Norriton, and Audubon. It's a lot of stops, so we'll be spending a little more than a month passing through this area. It's a total distance from east to west of roughly 40 miles so it's not too long but it is a significant enough distance that we will be moving from Philadelphia suburbs to the beginning of more rural areas to the west of Philadelphia. And once we're done with this, we'll be on to the Lancaster area! Tomorrow, we begin over on The Independent Edition for the first post.