Grocery Archaeology

Original Tenant: unknown Address: 712 High St, Portsmouth, VA Opened:  unknown Closed:  unknown Later Tenants:  unknown Photographed:  January 2020 We're here in downtown Portsmouth, the next town south of Norfolk which has an interesting downtown. It seems that it's a more historically preserved city than Norfolk, which has a lot of new and middle-aged development, and also a lower-income city although it looks like there's some redevelopment going on downtown with some new businesses and interesting attractions downtown. This little storefront has the feel of an old grocery store, and it definitely sold food at one point but it may have been more of a newsstand/convenience store -- or even an ice cream parlor, possibly -- based on what's left on the storefront here. I thought it was worth photographing anyway. (Like our Monticello Ave store, this one does not appear on Groceteria's list , but that doesn't mean it wasn't a grocery store.) Love these sign...

Original Tenant: unknown Address: 795 Monticello Ave, Norfolk, VA Opened:  unknown Closed:  unknown Later Tenants:  CHKD Thrift Store Photographed:  December 2019 This is one of those buildings that just feels  like it used to be a supermarket. However, it looks like I'm wrong here. I can't find any evidence that this building ever was a grocery store, using Newspapers.com and Groceteria's Norfolk list (and that includes searching alternate addresses on the streets that surround the property, just in case the "front" of the property has changed over time). The only hole is that Groceteria's list is chain stores, and it's always possible this 17,000 square foot, pitched-roof building was an independent grocer. I mean, one could be forgiven for thinking this was a supermarket, right? Either way, we're headed north of downtown tomorrow for two stores in the Ghent neighborhood, both over on The Market Report !

Original Tenant: Farm Fresh Address: 1200 N Military Hwy, Norfolk, VA Opened:  unknown Closed:  2018 Later Tenants:  subdivided Photographed:  December 2019 I captured the Janaf Farm Fresh (not the Wards Corner Farm Fresh, as I originally thought ) after its closure but before anything else had moved in. The space was later remodeled and subdivided for an Advance Auto Parts, keeping most of the facade intact. The store looked quite nice when it was still in business, and I'd guess that it was one of the newer-built Farm Fresh locations. By the way, as you may know or have guessed, there's a large military presence in Norfolk (incidentally, my uncle was stationed here for a while), giving us names like Military Highway and also the neighborhood where this store is, Janaf (or Joint Army-Navy Air Force). We have two more stores right in this area, the Food Lion across the street and the ALDI just south. Tomorrow, we head into downtown for a store here on Grocery A...

Original Tenant: Food Fair Address: 2420 E Little Creek Rd, Norfolk, VA Opened:  1950s Closed:  unknown Later Tenants:  unknown > Dollar Tree Photographed:  January 2020 Gotta love the tower! This 1950s-era Food Fair has since become a Dollar Tree, but I'm not sure what else was in between. The building looks like it originally would've been around 17,000 square feet but later expanded by about 3,000 to its present size. Tomorrow we move about half a mile east for our next store on The Market Report !

Original Tenant:  Hannaford Address:  207 E Little Creek Rd, Norfolk, VA Opened:  unknown Closed:  by 2000 Later Tenants:  Kroger (2000-2018) Photographed:  December 2019 Some interesting story here: this store was originally a Hannaford, paired with a Kmart next door. When I visited, I kind of thought the exterior looked a little like a Hannaford, a chain I'm fairly familiar with, and only vaguely remembered that they ever were in this area, which is still bizarre to me. If I had to guess, Hannaford would've opened this store in the late 80s or early 90s, with Kroger moving in by 2000. It seems that Kroger would've purchased this store from Hannaford in 2000, when Delhaize bought Hannaford and had to divest some locations (those close to their existing Food Lion stores, such as this one). Interestingly enough, it seems that Kroger is trying to drive traffic to their Harris Teeter nearby, as they closed this store in 2018 and, in the same year, purchased a...

   Look at that, we're moving on to our next mid-Atlantic group tomorrow! And yes, there's a slightly different banner design here prompted definitely by my desire to update the blog's look to keep it trendy and modern, and definitely not prompted by the fact that an unfortunate incident involving an external hard drive lost about a year and a half worth of stuff that I had saved. Anyway. We are moving on to the greater Norfolk area, and this part of Virginia is referred to as Hampton Roads. Virginia Beach and Newport News are some of the other cities in this area, although we won't be visiting Newport News sadly. As I mentioned yesterday, this is not the most exciting group of stores simply because I was only in the Norfolk area for a family reunion, which is not the most conducive to photographing large quantities of supermarkets. But I was able to get some, so we'll be spending about two weeks in the Norfolk area. Come back tomorrow to jump right into a store tou...