Grocery Archaeology

Original Tenant: Penn Fruit Address: 6301 Roosevelt Blvd, Mayfair, Philadelphia, PA Opened:  before 1958 Closed:  unknown Later Tenants:  Gaudio's Nursery > Frank's > assorted car dealers Photographed:  July 2021 Quite the dramatic sky behind today's former Penn Fruit, located on Roosevelt Blvd just west of the ACME and former ACME we've seen recently. The current car dealership building is built around an original roughly 13,400 square foot Penn Fruit building, which is recognizable by the arched roof (in the center section, seen below) and the tower sign. In its current incarnation as a car dealership, the building has been expanded out to just under 35,000 square feet. You can read all about the history of the building here , along with seeing a picture from 2009. Tomorrow, we're moving just about a mile south of Roosevelt Boulevard for our first stop in the Frankford neighborhood on The Independent Edition !

Original Tenant: ACME Markets Address: 6501 Harbison Ave, Mayfair, Philadelphia, PA Opened:  1950s Closed:  1979 Later Tenants:  CVS/Staples > CVS Photographed:  July 2021 Yesterday's ACME opened in a former Food Fair in 1979 as a replacement for this store, which opened as a new-build ACME in the 1950s. At just under 24,000 square feet, this store is roughly half the size of the replacement ACME, although I'm not sure how much the current ACME was expanded from its original size. We have one more stop before we move onto the Frankford neighborhood, about 3/10 of a mile west on Roosevelt Blvd. Come back on Monday to check it out!

Original Tenant: A&P Address: 7201 Roosevelt Blvd, Mayfair, Philadelphia, PA Opened:  unknown Closed:  by 1983 Later Tenants:  Today's Man > K&G Photographed:  July 2021 A beautiful summer evening sky is the perfect backdrop to today's former A&P at the northern part of the Mayfair neighborhood. It appears that the store was originally constructed as a 15,000 square foot arched roof store, then later expanded out both sides to its present 23,000 square feet. If I had to guess, I'd bet that this store was constructed right before the centennial era, then expanded right after the centennial era, since there's no indication this store ever had any centennial characteristics. It doesn't appear that this store made it to the 1983 conversion of all Philadelphia area A&Ps to SuperFresh, but unfortunately my reliable source JoshAustin610 has little more information to offer about the supermarket. Looks like it's been clothing retailers since. A...

Original Tenant:  Penn Fruit Address: 4011 Cottman Ave, Mayfair, Philadelphia, PA Opened:  ca. 1950s Closed:  by 1979 Later Tenants:  Rite Aid > Drug Palace > Rite Aid Photographed:  July 2021 Today we're in the northeastern part of the Mayfair neighborhood for a look at a Penn Fruit (without the signature arched roof, since apparently this one was built before they adopted that building style). The 15,000 square foot building was actually constructed as a replacement for an older Penn Fruit store just across the parking lot at 7303 Frankford Ave , also later home to a Rite Aid before they moved into this Penn Fruit store, and now a post office. You can read all about the history of both locations over on JoshAustin610's page here . I mentioned in yesterday's post  that full supermarkets are fairly scarce in these neighborhoods in this part of Philadelphia, but there are many small grocers that are more like convenience stores or bodegas, with grocer...