Grocery Archaeology

  It's time for our last county in New York before we move into New England, starting with Connecticut! We've spent a fair amount of time in Westchester County already, so this is a relatively quick group of stores. Starting tomorrow, we're going to spend just around a week taking a trip through Westchester County from the south, near where it borders the Bronx in Yonkers, up through Mamaroneck, Armonk, Katonah, Goldens Bridge, and ending in Somers. But also we have a brief interruption for a very special Leap Day feature on February 29th! And some maneuvering to accommodate a late addition with some more stores in Mount Vernon, so expect a weekend post or two. We're going to begin with a snapshot on  The Market Report  tomorrow!

Original Grocery Tenant:  Grand Union Address: 1581 US-202, Pomona, NY Opened:  late 1970s Closed:  2001 Later Tenants:  Stop & Shop (2001-2020) > Evergreen Uptown (2022- ) Photographed:  June 2, 2021 Welcome back to the former Stop & Shop of Pomona, NY! The 51,000 square foot store was built around 1978 as a Grand Union as a much smaller building, then renovated and expanded by Grand Union in the late 1990s. Stop & Shop acquired the location in 2001 at the time of Grand Union's bankruptcy, then closed in August 2020. We saw the store still open in 2020, too. I revisited over the summer of 2021 after the Stop & Shop had closed and the new tenant, Evergreen, a kosher supermarket, was preparing to move in. As I've said, there is a large (and growing) Orthodox Jewish population in Rockland County and much of this part of the state, making it harder and harder for traditional supermarkets like this Stop & Shop to survive. There's a ShopRite ...

Original Grocery Tenant: A&P Address: 41 NY-59, Nyack, NY Opened:  between 1953 and 1964 Closed:  unknown Later Tenants:  subdivided Photographed:  March 8, 2023 From the parking lot of the Old World Food Market across the street, we can get a look at the former 9,000 square foot A&P of Nyack! This store was built between 1953 and 1964, and my initial assumption was that at some later point, A&P moved across the street into what's now Old World, but actually the two stores were built around the same time which makes me think Old World was a competitor, like possibly Safeway or a Foodtown or something like that. But I'm not really sure. Up next, we're headed into downtown Nyack on The Independent Edition tomorrow for a small store in town!

Original Grocery Tenant: Grand Union Address: 32 S Middletown Rd, Nanuet, NY Opened:  1990s Closed:  2001 Later Tenants:  Stop & Shop (2001-2022) > Floor & Decor Photographed:  August 12, 2022 This store doesn't look much like a Grand Union, and that's thanks to an extensive exterior renovation by Stop & Shop, but it was constructed as one in the 1990s replacing an older store across the street. The 58,000 square foot store was sold to Stop & Shop in Grand Union's bankruptcy in 2001, then moved across the street into a former Fairway Market at the Shops at Nanuet in 2020. If we look carefully and use our imagination a little bit, we can tell this building has Grand Union-style bones. The middle segment is clearly new, but built around a distinctive Grand Union awning. There wasn't that much time between Stop & Shop's closure and the repurposing of the location as a Floor & Decor -- only about two years -- but I managed to get there and ...

Original Grocery Tenant: Grand Union Address: 420 Market St, Nanuet, NY Opened:  ca. 1970s Closed:  unknown Later Tenants:  subdivided Photographed:  August 12, 2022 Another Grocery Archaeology post, another Grand Union . This one was around 30,000 square feet and constructed in the 1970s just south of what's now the Shops at Nanuet which was formerly the Nanuet Mall. At some point, around the early 1990s, Grand Union moved roughly across the street to a new-build, 58,000 square foot store. We have two posts today, and our other stop is in the same strip mall as this store -- with a fair bit of Grand Union history itself. Check it out here . Tomorrow, we're seeing the newer Grand Union on  Grocery Archaeology  as well as the Stop & Shop across the street on  The Market Report !

Original Grocery Tenant: Grand Union Address: 140 Orange Ave, Suffern, NY Opened:  between 1953 and 1965 Closed:  unknown Later Tenants:  assorted non-grocery tenants Photographed:  December 15, 2020 We're near the Hudson River -- about 12 miles west -- and you know what that means: Grand Union territory. The New Jersey-based chain had locations all up and down the river in New York state, as far north as Rouses Point a mile from the Canada border all the way south to here in Suffern, where we're less than half a mile to the New Jersey line. This one was built between 1953 and 1965, but unfortunately I don't know when it closed. It's possible, though, it closed in the 1970s when Grand Union constructed a new store around two miles east out on route 59 -- but the stores are far enough away that it's also possible that store's opening didn't affect this one. The 16,000 square foot location just south of downtown Suffern is today the Rainbow Ace Hardware. O...

  Welcome (back) to Rockland County! This is now our third time here, having visited before with a selection of stores across the county, but this time we'll be seeing all different stores we've never checked out before, including some new ones. We'll start in Suffern in the southwestern part of the county, then pass through Spring Valley, Nanuet, and Nyack along route 59 on our way east to the Hudson River, which separates Rockland County from its eastern neighbor Westchester County. Then we're turning north and moving inland a bit for Pomona and Garnerville, then along the river for Haverstraw, West Haverstraw, and Stony Point. This county has a large Orthodox Jewish population, as does much of the Hudson Valley, so we'll be seeing some kosher stores along with a variety of other supermarkets around the towns. We'll begin tomorrow with a former supermarket here on Grocery Archaeology!