Grocery Archaeology

Original Grocery Tenant: Bottom Dollar Food Address: 1529 Broadway, Fountain Hill, PA Opened:  2011 Closed:  2015 Later Tenants:  subdivided Photographed:  January 8, 2021 Moving on from the Allentown area to the Bethlehem area, we find this former Bottom Dollar Food location in Fountain Hill, a small town just to the south of South Bethlehem. The store was open for four years before closing with the rest of the Bottom Dollar chain in 2015. The roughly 18,000 square foot store is today divided between Dollar General and another space that was vacant at the time of my visit. On Monday we're headed into the south side of Bethlehem to check out a small supermarket that recently closed, over on The Independent Edition !

Original Grocery Tenant: Bottom Dollar Food, Penn Fruit previously on property Address: 1165 MacArthur Rd, Whitehall, PA Opened:  2012 Closed:  2015 Later Tenants:  subdivided Photographed:  January 8, 2021 (If you've already seen this... looks like I accidentally scheduled it for 2/7 instead of 3/7. Whoops.) Here's an interesting little store in the Lehigh Valley suburb of Whitehall, to the north of Allentown. The store was built as a 20,000 square foot Bottom Dollar Food discount supermarket in 2012, but it was actually built on the site of a former Penn Fruit which until its 2012 demolition was remarkably intact. The store, as you can see in the picture above, still has its tall Penn Fruit sign, just with some new tenants advertised on it. Plus, the trademark slope over the main entrance is present still on the AutoZone. Here's a look at the old store prior to its demolition. Note that the Rent-a-Center portion of the building is still standing. And now for som...

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...

Original Tenant: Shop n Bag Address: 2134 Street Rd, Bensalem, PA Opened:  1960s/70s Closed:  ca. early 1980s Later Tenants:  Food Check (1980s-late 1980s) > Staples (1988-2003) > Office Depot (2006-2010) > Bottom Dollar Food (2011-2015) > Jerusalem Furniture (2016- ) Photographed:  December 28, 2021 An obvious former Bottom Dollar Food location here in Bensalem has become a furniture store for the past five years or so. Check out the full history here and here . The 21,000 square foot store has a lot of similarities to the Cinnaminson location we saw not too long ago. There's also a Redner's a little under half a mile west, and an Amazon Fresh coming soon about a quarter of a mile southeast, not to mention a GIANT about 3/4 of a mile north and other assorted markets closer, so there's a lot of competition around here. Tomorrow, we continue our westward trek, this time moving about five miles northwest to our next stop in Feasterville-Trevose on The I...

Original Tenant: Penn Fruit Address: 1402 US-130, Cinnaminson, NJ Opened:  1960s Closed:  1970s Later Tenants:  Shop n Bag (1970s-??) > Talk of the Town (??-??) > Portobello Farm Market (??-ca. 2009) > Gold's Gym (ca. 2010-2012) > Bottom Dollar Food (2012-2015) Photographed:  January 2021 We arrive in Cinnaminson for a look at two different stores, both former supermarkets. This one has quite the history which I've pieced together with JoshAustin610's records , opening as a Penn Fruit and then cycling through a variety of banners and owners before becoming Bottom Dollar in 2012. (Incidentally, if I'm not mistaken, Talk of the Town was a relatively short-lived high-end gourmet market concept by Wakefern, one of several they tested over the years.) If you compare today's exterior pictures to JoshAustin610's 2010 picture linked above, you can see the similarities but that Bottom Dollar did exterior renovations. They also, of course, redid the entire i...