Grocery Archaeology

We're finishing our week of old supermarket ads with a very famous name everyone here is sure to know, ACME Markets! ACME had locations in Elizabeth as well as nearby suburbs like Union  (also see here ). So many of these ads actually came from the same issue of the newspaper, with the September 24, 1975 edition having about four of the ones we have seen in the last week or so. These days, in my area of Essex County, ShopRite is the only one who still advertises in The Star-Ledger, which is all but the only newspaper left in my area. But don't worry, there's plenty more Back in Time material still to see over the next few days! Come back tomorrow for some wonderful old pictures of supermarkets!

Original Grocery Tenant: ACME Markets Address: 24 Main Ave, Hawley, PA Opened:  1950s Closed:  1994 Later Tenants:  Insalaco's (1994-1995) > Dutch's Market (1995-2006) > IGA (2006-2014) > Dollar General (2015- ) Photographed:  December 18, 2019 and May 28, 2023 Hawley, PA is a delightful quaint little town on the shores of Lake Wallenpaupack, a very interesting manmade lake (where you can also take a beautiful boat tour). This 13,000 square foot store was built in the 1950s by ACME and then closed in 1994, but here's where it gets interesting. Insalaco's was apparently here for just a year, opening in 1994 and closing in 1995. Dutch's Market, which has another location in Greentown which we'll be touring in a few days, was here from 1995 to 2006, at which point the store closed and was sold to the owners of the other supermarket in town, the Lake Region IGA. It operated as an IGA until 2014 (after it was beginning to close in 2011, but extended briefl...

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 ...

Original Grocery Tenant: ACME Markets Address: 501 W Main St, Plymouth, PA Opened:  1967 Closed:  unknown Later Tenants:  Family Dollar Photographed:  December 22, 2018 Today's snapshot is a quick look at the former ACME in Plymouth, PA! The 11,000 square foot store is now mostly occupied by a Family Dollar, and was built in 1967. It had closed by 1990 but I'm not sure of the exact year. As was frequently the case, ACME was located directly across the street from an A&P that was built probably slightly before the ACME was. That store is still a supermarket, and we're going to be touring it Monday on The Independent Edition !

Original Grocery Tenant: ACME Markets Address: 2456 Sans Souci Pkwy, Nanticoke, PA Opened:  1959 Closed:  unknown Later Tenants:  Gerrity's ShurSave > Tractor Supply Co. Photographed:  December 22, 2018 ACME used to have a very significant presence in the Wyoming Valley, but was out of the area by 1995 when the remaining stores were sold to Penn Traffic (except for one, I think -- didn't Edwardsville stay open for a while longer? I could be wrong but I seem to remember that being the case). Anyway, this store is around 30,000 square feet and was replaced by a Gerrity's ShurSave when it closed. That store later moved next door to the former Kmart in Hanover around 2002. Acme Style has posted on Flickr some beautiful old pictures of this store when it had the script logo, when it opened , and a later picture with the updated logo . There was also another ACME in Nanticoke , which was a pitched-roof store (see here for more). We'll be taking a look at the Gerrity...

Original Grocery Tenant:  independent grocer Address: 380 Bucknell Ave, Johnstown, PA Opened:  1892 Closed:  1924 Later Tenants:  A&P (1924-1939) > ACME Markets (1939-1950s) > Tioga Street Market (1950s-2017) Photographed:  January 14, 2023 Here's another snowy Johnstown shot from our contributor, who grew up around the corner from this store. We're at the corner of Bucknell and Tioga here in the Westmont section, to see a roughly 2,000 square foot store that opened in 1892 as an independent grocer, later purchased by A&P in 1924 before closing in 1939 and becoming, believe it or not, a very early ACME in the same year. ACME moved to the Bi-Lo location I mentioned in yesterday's post in the 1950s and it became the Tioga Street Market, which finally closed in 2017. There has been talk of reopening the store, but no progress that I can see. Tomorrow we have one more store in Johnstown, a snapshot of a recently-closed store over on The Independent ...

Original Grocery Tenant: ACME Markets Address: 3055 Park Pl, Clearfield, PA Opened:  1963 Closed:  unknown Later Tenants:  CVS > Buck's Pizza Photographed:  June 23, 2023 I think this is the first time we've seen a former ACME that's now a pizzeria! (Although we did see a former A&P become a pizzeria up in Elizabethtown, NY .) The unmistakable pitched-roof design tops this 11,500 square foot store opened in 1963 replacing an older store at 110 E Market St that appears to have opened around the 1930s. While I'm not clear on when ACME closed or who occupied the space thereafter, I do know that it became a CVS, which eventually moved to a new-build store closer to the street, and the space is now a large pizzeria, with a church apparently taking up the back half. Sadly, it doesn't look like there's any suggestion of the high ceiling inside. By the way, we're looking at this store from across the West Branch of the Susquehanna River, though we're a...

Original Grocery Tenant:  ACME Markets Address: 7495 Westbranch Hwy, Lewisburg, PA Opened:  late 1970s Closed:  1995 Later Tenants:  Bi-Lo (1995-1998) > Save-A-Lot (1998-ca. 2014) Photographed:  August 19, 2022 Today's snapshot is a quick look at a former ACME, later Bi-Lo and then a Save-A-Lot owned by Weis, which has a store just south of here. Eventually Weis sold the store back to Save-A-Lot, and then it closed around 2014. Although the building was extensively renovated, the original structure is still standing. There's another new grocery store just north of here, which we'll be taking a look at tomorrow on The Market Report !

Original Grocery Tenant: ACME Markets Address: 250 Reily St, Harrisburg, PA Opened:  1940 Closed:  unknown Later Tenants:  assorted non-grocery tenants Photographed:  August 14, 2022 Midtown Harrisburg is home to this 10,000 square foot building today housing the Midtown Cinema, but originally a 1940-built ACME. The building's facade was recently renovated, and here's a look at what it used to look like. The building is long and thin in the style of ACMEs of that era. I don't have a closing date for this store, and I also don't know if it relocated somewhere nearby or just closed. There's a grocery store just a few blocks away from this building still in operation today, and we'll be checking it out on Monday on The Independent Edition !

Original Grocery Tenant:  ACME Markets Address: 467 Allwood Rd, Clifton, NJ O pened:  2004 Closed:  2015 Later Tenants:  Seasons Supermarket (2016-2023) Photographed:  May 22, 2023 Well folks, I attempted to get to the Seasons kosher supermarket in Clifton -- the former Styertowne ACME -- before it closed, after it abruptly announced its closure this spring. Rumors suggested it wouldn't actually close until mid-June but by late May it was empty and locked up. So unfortunately we will only get the outside pictures and a brief look in through the windows. The store opened in 2016 in a former ACME that was a bit over 10 years old at the time of its closure. The 55,000 square foot store was turned into one of the larger kosher supermarkets in the area. While Seasons says they lost their lease (which is true; this will soon be home to New Jersey's second Stew Leonard's), I think the real story is not that simple. Online reviews suggest selection was drastically cu...

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:  ACME Markets Address: 250 S Courtland St, East Stroudsburg, PA Opened:  1970s Closed:  ca. 1990 Later Tenants:  Mignosi's IGA (1990s) > CVS (2001- ) Photographed:  November 29, 2019 You can't miss that pitched-roof building, even if it's hidden by a new boring CVS facade! This CVS is built around an original 17,500 square foot ACME, later expanded to around 24,000 square feet. It looks like the CVS might take up only the space that was the original ACME, and the rest has been repurposed. This ACME closed around 1990, and was a Mignosi's IGA for around 10 years (same owners as the current Foodtown of East Stroudsburg ) before becoming CVS in 2001. In the back, we can definitely tell this building was an ACME! I didn't spend too much time looking around but the bones are definitely fully intact. Tomorrow, we're moving on to a very new store here in East Stroudsburg, which is just about a block south of here, on The Market Report !