Grocery Archaeology

Original Grocery Tenant: A&P Address: 1841 S 4th St, Allentown, PA Opened:  1956 Closed:  1982 Later Tenants:  Hersh's IGA (1982-1990) > subdivided Photographed:  January 8, 2021 Just around the corner from yesterday's Superfood is this former A&P. It was constructed in the 1960s as an A&P centennial, then closed in 1982 when it was sold to Hersh's IGA. In 1990, Hersh's merged with Traub's IGA which was in what is now the Superfood, and closed this location. Traub's later sold to Valley Farm Market and then they sold to Superfood. Here's my source on that history. Don't forget the name Hersh's, by the way, we'll be seeing more of them as we pass through Allentown. A&P and ACME were direct competitors for a very long time and this location was no different, with a former ACME just up the street. That one, however, is still a supermarket, and we're going to check it out tomorrow on The Market Report !

Original Grocery Tenant: Food Fair Address: 1501 Lehigh St, Allentown, PA Opened:  1959 Closed:  unknown Later Tenants:  assorted non-grocery tenants Photographed:  January 8, 2021 You can spot this former Food Fair a mile away with its still-intact tower! The 19,000 square foot building was originally the Food Fair of the Parkway Shopping Center, closing by the 1970s. The mall later had a different supermarket tenant , but the store was short-lived and the mall is now without any supermarket anchor -- or any anchor, really, for such a large strip mall. A Redner's and a GIANT remain in the area, along with an independent around a mile east where we're headed on Monday on The Independent Edition !

Original Grocery Tenant: Shop Fair Supermarket Address: 1587 Lehigh St, Allentown, PA Opened:  unknown Closed:  by 2008 Later Tenants:  NSA Supermarkets (ca. 2008-ca. 2012) Photographed:  January 8, 2021 Our next two days of posts are in the same strip mall! The Parkway Shopping Center here in Allentown was once home to a Food Fair, which we'll be checking out tomorrow, but more recently had the Shop Fair Supermarket (no relation to the current chain ) later replaced by the Food Saver Market, affiliated at the time with NSA Supermarkets. NSA was the precursor to what today is America's Food Basket, and their banner Ideal Food Basket is preparing to open a store over in Bethlehem. This 22,000 square foot space is now a medical facility. Tomorrow we're headed to the other end of the mall for a look at its original supermarket anchor!

Original Grocery Tenant: ShopRite (closed 1992) Address: 2919 Lehigh St, Allentown, PA Opened:  unknown Closed:  1992 Later Tenants:  Food 4 Less (closed 2006) > Food Depot (2006-2007) > Bottom Dollar Food (2010-2014) Photographed:  January 8, 2021 Today's snapshot is a building that's had quite a few grocery tenants over the years. It was constructed around the 1960s as a ShopRite, likely owned by Saker/Foodarama but I'm not certain of that, then closed by 1992. It became a series of discount supermarket, first Food 4 Less, then the independent Food Depot (unrelated as far as I can tell to the NJ chain ), and most recently Bottom Dollar until their closure. When I visited, the store was being prepared to be converted to an auto parts store. But the massive metal sign structure remains out by the street, not to mention still with its painted-over Bottom Dollar sign. Check out Bottom Dollar in business here , and before they opened here . We're about three and...

Welcome to the Lehigh Valley! This region encompasses Easton, Bethlehem, and Allentown of Pennsylvania, and into the Phillipsburg area of New Jersey. We are going to be on the Pennsylvania side this time around, working our way west to east. We'll be seeing a few places in Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton, along with some of the smaller towns and areas like Center Valley, Whitehall, Hellertown, and Fountain Hill. This time around (and we've  been here before , back in ancient history) we'll be focusing on some of the smaller corner stores, neighborhood markets, and former supermarkets rather than the chain supermarkets. Really the only big chains with any significant presence here are GIANT and Weis, and we'll be seeing one of each but a lot of the other, more interesting (to me at least) stuff this time through. We begin tomorrow with a former supermarket here on Grocery Archaeology! But wait, there's more. Here's today's special reports! Special Report: St...

Original Grocery Tenant:  Delray's Thriftway Address: 322 W Bridge St, New Hope, PA Opened:  1979 Closed:  1999 Later Tenants:  Clemens (1999-2006) > SuperFresh (2006-2015) Photographed:  January 12, 2021 Just next door from yesterday's McCaffrey's  is this former supermarket, today a gym and physical therapy facility. This facility is slightly smaller than the McCaffrey's at around 22,000 square feet. It was constructed in 1979 as Delray's Thriftway with the rest of the strip mall, then 20 years later became a Clemens which in turn was sold to SuperFresh in 2006. SuperFresh closed in 2015, with the current tenant opening a few years after that. By the way, we are directly across the river from Lambertville, NJ, where we saw the former ACME . That store is a little over a mile east over the border. Up next we're headed around 7 miles north along the Delaware River for tomorrow's snapshot, over on The Independent Edition !