Grocery Archaeology

Original Grocery Tenant:  Garcia's Market Address: 824 Pittston Ave, South Side, Scranton, PA Opened:  1999 Closed:  ca. 2014 Later Tenants:  vacant, now demolished Photographed:  December 22, 2018 Today's store is a small former grocer on the south side of Scranton. The roughly 1,000 square foot space held several tenants over the years -- a furniture store in the 1940s, a florist in the 1960s, and a hair salon in the early 1990s -- before becoming Garcia's Market in 1999. Garcia's opened a second store diagonally across the street at 901 Pittston at some point, which later became a Super Natural Produce. We're going to check that store out tomorrow on The Independent Edition ! And very important... yesterday we took a look at the brand-new SuperFresh in Middlesex on The Market Report! Don't miss it, and check it out here !

Original Grocery Tenant:  A&P Address: 3516 Birney Ave, Moosic, PA Opened:  1960s Closed:  1969 Later Tenants:  A-Mart (1969-after 1971) Photographed:  August 12, 2020 Today's snapshot is the former A&P of Moosic, where we visited a store that's held a parade of different banners, ending up with The Fresh Grocer , just down the street. As we can tell in the above picture, the roughly 17,000 square foot store was a centennial store when it opened in the 1960s, then became an A&P-owned A-Mart Discount Foods location in 1969, which was in business at least through 1971 (although I can't find any ads that list the location after that year). After A-Mart, I'm not sure if there was another grocer here, but it eventually hosted a variety of other tenants including a mattress store and a car dealer, which it remains today. I mentioned the ShopRite in Moosic a lot in the Gerrity's post, and tomorrow we'll see the ShopRite just before it opened on The Market ...

    Moving on to the northern part of the Wyoming Valley! This time we're looking at stores in and around Scranton, ranging from Moosic to the southwest of the city, into the city itself, and then to the northeast of the city through Peckville, Archbald, Mayfield, Carbondale, and Forest City. It's a relatively brief survey of the area, but we'll see a fair number of stores in the time we're here which will be a little less than a month. With around 76,000 people, Scranton is the largest city in this part of Pennsylvania, and the seventh-largest in Pennsylvania overall. Like the Wilkes-Barre area, we'll be touring quite a few Gerrity's, but there are also a lot of independents in this area. Lots of exciting stuff is coming soon, starting with a Gerrity's tomorrow on  The Market Report ! Also today... two special reports over in Manhattan! Wegmans - Astor Place, Manhattan, NY SuperFresh - Two Bridges, Manhattan, NY

Original Grocery Tenant: Kunec's Market Address: 302 Maffett St, Wilkes-Barre, PA Opened:  by 1946 Closed:  by 2017 Later Tenants:  vacant Photographed:  December 22, 2018 At the corner of Maffett and Hollenback Streets in northern Wilkes-Barre sits this 1800 square foot store. Unfortunately, Kunec's Market closed by 2017 after more than 70 years in business. The store was open by 1946. I think by the end, Kunec's was mostly a deli and butcher shop, but it appears it was once more of a full grocery store. The store closed by 2017 but then in 2018 was condemned. Despite that, by 2022, it was still standing but further deteriorated. It's possible that the apparently hand-painted Kunec's Market signage was original to the store's opening, if likely restored later. Like Harry's , I wish I could've gotten to this store when it was still open, but I'm glad I got there soon after it closed. All I can do is keep visiting grocery stores, especially interes...

Original Grocery Tenant: Big V ShopRite Address: 675 Kidder St, Wilkes-Barre, PA Opened:  1990s Closed:  2001 Later Tenants:  vacant, half now Ollie's Bargain Outlet Photographed:  December 22, 2018 I mentioned on one of our recent Gerrity's posts that Wakefern used to have a presence in the Wyoming Valley, actually as early as 1981 (not sure if they were here before that). I believe most of that presence was driven by member Big V, which also had a large presence in the Hudson Valley of New York. For a quick recap, they attempted to leave Wakefern around 2000, trying to simultaneously convince Wakefern they were going off on their own to avoid paying the penalty to leave while also having very public negotiations with Stop & Shop to sell the chain to them. Wakefern rejected their argument, required they pay the penalty to leave the coop, and that bankrupted Big V. Wakefern bought back most of Big V's assets (one store went to Stop & Shop), but some store...

Original Grocery Tenant: A&P Address: 500 Scott St, Wilkes-Barre, PA Opened:  by 1962 Closed:  1970s Later Tenants:  assorted non-grocery tenants Photographed:  December 22, 2018 Today's snapshot is a not-particularly-good picture of a former A&P to the east of downtown Wilkes-Barre. The 12,000 square foot store was built between 1959 and 1962, making it one of the earlier centennials. It was definitely closed by 1985 but most likely by the previous decade. Here's a better look at the store. Interestingly, a little grocer called La Isla Fresh Market has opened in a tiny sliver of the old A&P (or actually maybe in what used to be a bank next to the A&P?). But tomorrow we have a much more in-depth look at a larger former supermarket very close to this store right here on Grocery Archaeology!

Original Grocery Tenant: ACME Markets Address: 400 S Main St, Wilkes-Barre, PA Opened:  1966 Closed:  1995 Later Tenants:  Insalaco's (1995-1999) > BiLo (1999-after 2003) Photographed:  December 22, 2018 Happy October! ACME had a presence in Wilkes-Barre going back at least as far as 1937 when they opened a store at 693-695 Hazle Street, now a parking lot for a neighboring funeral home. But in 1966, ACME constructed a 19,000 square foot pitched-roof store as part of a new mall on Main Street, later expanding that store to around 27,000 square feet. It became a Super Saver in the 1970s, then back to ACME, then Insalaco's in 1995 when Penn Traffic acquired ACME's northeastern PA stores, then BiLo in 1999 before closing at some point between 2003 and 2008. Following BiLo's closure, Volunteers of America moved in and turned the space into a thrift store. I visited the store in 2018 when Volunteers of America was still there. The thrift store closed in May 2020, and ...