Grocery Archaeology

Original Grocery Tenant: A&P Address: 1213 E Broad St, Tamaqua, PA Opened:  1970s Closed:  1993 Later Tenants:  Ahart's Thriftway (1993-1999) > BRL Grocery Outlet (closed 2018) Photographed:  November 29, 2019 We're now just outside of Tamaqua, a town of around 7000 which these days has a Boyer's right downtown, where we're headed tomorrow. The town also used to have a second supermarket, built as an A&P that closed in 1993 and became an Ahart's Thriftway. Around 2000, the space became a BRL Grocery Outlet, a local chain of discount grocery stores also referred to as Buy Rite Liquidators. They also took a former ACME in Coal Township, seen here . BRL closed in 2018 and mostly cleared out the space, except for some assorted shopping carts and some refrigerator cases seen at the back of the store. It's lucky there were lights on inside! As you can see in the first picture, I was here after dark, so it was just good luck that we can actually see inside...

Original Grocery Tenant: ACME Markets Address:  431 Delaware Ave, Palmerton, PA Opened:  1947 Closed:  1963 Later Tenants:  assorted non-grocery tenants Photographed:  December 22, 2018 It's our final stop in Palmerton, a small town of around 5400. Today there's just one supermarket, the Country Harvest Family Market , which was previously a 1970s-era ACME. ACME moved there from this location just west on the main street through town, and Country Harvest may have been a move for the former Golden Key IGA between that store and this one. Though the former ACME today is religious offices, we can see the basic structure of ACME's storefront is still intact. Now from Palmerton we're headed about seven miles northwest to Lehighton, which has a small independent grocery store going strong right downtown just like Palmerton. Check it out tomorrow on The Independent Edition !

Original Grocery Tenant:  Golden Key IGA Address: 493 Delaware Ave, Palmerton, PA Opened:  ca. 1960s Closed:  ca. 2010 Later Tenants:  vacant Photographed:  December 22, 2018 A very brief look today at the former Golden Key IGA in downtown Palmerton! It's just kind of diagonally across the street from Country Harvest, and was owned by the same people who own Country Harvest. My guess is that when ACME closed, they moved in there but decided to keep the older store too, which lasted for around 10 years beyond the opening of Country Harvest. In fact, in the 2009 street view , you can catch a glimpse of the Golden Key IGA in business. Notice the shopping carts in the window! These days, the former Golden Key is a Chinese restaurant, which appears to fill only the front half or so of the 7,000 square foot space, but as of 2021, the Golden Key IGA sign was still up ! Just west of this store in the same block is another former grocery store, where we're headed tomorr...

  Moving to the west of the Stroudsburg area (and please note that the map above is approximate...) we're in the Coal Region! This area is named for obvious reasons, given that the area to the southwest of the Poconos was and still is a large coal production area. We're making a lot of stops in this area, mostly heading west along US-209. We start in Palmerton, then through Lehighton, Jim Thorpe, Lansford, Tamaqua, New Philadelphia, Saint Clair, Pottsville (the largest town in the area), and Minersville, before turning south to stop by Pine Grove. We then circle north on the northern side of INT-81 for Ashland, Frackville, Shenandoah, and Mahanoy City. When we're in Pine Grove, we'll be only 35 miles outside of Harrisburg, which is our next group of stores. But before then, we've got a lot of small towns in the lower Coal Region area with a lot of independent and small chain stores, starting with one over on  The Independent Edition  tomorrow!