Grocery Archaeology

Original Grocery Tenant: Red & White Food Stores Address: 46 Tolland Green, Tolland, CT Opened:  unknown Closed:  unknown Later Tenants:  Tolland Red & White Gift Shop Photographed:  November 27, 2022 The small town of Tolland, CT -- 18 miles northeast of Hartford and 12 miles south of Massachusetts -- today has a very attractive-looking Big Y , but once was served by the Tolland Red & White. Red & White , for those who are not familiar, is a very loose group of small independent grocers, once a larger cooperative with locations across the US and Canada but now really just a brand distributed by The Federated Group from the Chicago area. It's not uncommon to see small convenience stores, bodegas, and greengrocers in the New York City area selling Red & White products, but those come from Federated via the Jetro wholesaler in New York, through their FoodBase program . On the town green in Tolland, a roughly 1000 square foot store retains the name...

Original Grocery Tenant: A&P Address: 701 Main St, East Hartford, CT Opened:  between 1950 and 1955 Closed:  between 1964 and 1977 Later Tenants:  subdivided Photographed:  March 4, 2022 It's not all that exciting, but today's store is a former A&P, now subdivided, just east of downtown Hartford in, well, East Hartford. Thanks to Groceteria , we know that the 24,000 square foot space was constructed as an A&P between 1950 and 1955 -- placing it just before the Centennial range -- and it closed at some point between 1964 and 1977. East Hartford has a ShopRite in a former Shaw's in a former A&P, but from the 90s or early 2000s, so I'm not sure if there was another A&P in town between this store's closing and that store's opening. There's no longer a supermarket here, but there is a CTown just under a mile south and a new Key Food opened recently around a third of a mile north. We'll be touring that store tomorrow, over on The Market...

Original Grocery Tenant:  Stop & Shop Address:  1200 Park St, Frog Hollow, Hartford, CT Opened:  1968 Closed:  after 1985 Later Tenants:  subdivided Photographed:  July 9, 2023 What's today the IKASA Furniture & Mattress store and a neighboring Dollar Tree was previously a Home Mart (...where you are the star!) but originally, back in 1968, opened as a 25,000 square foot Stop & Shop with a Bradlees next door. After Stop & Shop closed -- at some point after 1985 -- Save-A-Lot opened up in the space to the right of the former supermarket, taking up around 15,000 square feet. But by 2011, the Save-A-Lot moved a few doors over and 10,000 square feet up in size, then closing in 2020. That space is now a Key Food . Tomorrow we're off to East Hartford to check out another former supermarket right here on Grocery Archaeology!

Original Grocery Tenant: A&P Super Foodmart Address: 235 Queen St, Southington, CT Opened:  ca. 1980 Closed:  unknown Later Tenants:  subdivided Photographed:  October 7, 2023 This facade is pretty easily recognizable to me, even though I don't think there are any supermarkets left with it. It dates back to the 1990s or so, when this A&P would've been renovated and expanded into an A&P Super Foodmart. At the time of its closing, the store totaled 43,000 square feet. (The store may also have been a Waldbaum's at the time it opened.) For comparison, here's a look at this facade on the Newington location , which later became a Best Market and then Local Market. The distinctive angled edges and circle accents over the columns are easy to spot, although of course this one has been painted. A&P closed most of its central CT locations by about 2005, although some remained later . Quite a few of the southwestern CT locations lasted until the 2015 bankruptcy...

Original Grocery Tenant: Gristedes Address: 325 NY-100, Somers, NY Opened:  1974 Closed:  unknown Later Tenants:  CVS Photographed:  July 9, 2021 Sometimes my gut feeling leads me astray in deciding what used to be a supermarket, but this 15,000 square foot CVS just felt like a former supermarket to me. A little research shows I was right: the space was built with the rest of the strip mall in 1974 as a Gristedes. The infamously expensive New York City chain has branched out from the city on a few occasions, with their largest expansion being up to Westchester County. We've seen their former stores in Pelham and Scarsdale , too. I don't know when Gristedes closed, but it was well before the 2019 opening of a new upscale supermarket just across the street. Check it out here !

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: 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...

Original Grocery Tenant: Big V ShopRite Address: 400 NY-211, Middletown, NY Opened:  1990s Closed:  2007 Later Tenants:  Big Lots Photographed:  February 3, 2021 This 50,000 square foot supermarket was built in the 1990s as a Big V-owned ShopRite, relocating from a beautiful store of half that size down the street. In 2001, ownership was transferred to SRS when Big V went bankrupt. This store was relatively short-lived, having closed in 2007 when ShopRite moved into a former Stop & Shop, directly across the street from their old location. On Flickr, Jack Thomas captured this store several times in its history, including with its original facade and after a renovation . Also of note is that a location was built to replace this store , but when Stop & Shop closed very close to this store, ShopRite moved there instead. The almost-ShopRite -- of 85,000 square feet -- is now partially a Planet Fitness . (He also has a huge library of retail pictures in this a...

Original Grocery Tenant: Big V ShopRite Address: 303 NY-211, Middletown, NY Opened:  1950s Closed:  1990s Later Tenants:  non-grocery tenants Photographed:  February 3, 2021 Welcome to Middletown, New York's first ShopRite! The store opened in the 1950s with a beautiful sweeping arched roof and an all-glass front wall, which amazingly is pretty intact these days . The 24,000 square foot store, as far as I can tell, was built as a ShopRite owned by Big V and then closed in the 1990s when Big V moved down the street to a much larger, new-build location. That's what we'll be seeing tomorrow!

Original Grocery Tenant: none; supermarket previously planned Address: 99 E Broadway, Monticello, NY Opened:  n/a Closed:  n/a Later Tenants:  vacant Photographed:  February 3, 2021 Welcome to... not a grocery store! The Apollo Plaza just outside of Monticello, NY, was constructed in 1983, bringing around 200,000 square feet to eastern Monticello. It quickly declined for several reasons, and the final tenant moved out just 20 years later. Any number of proposals have been made over the years, and it's been sold repeatedly, but no real movement has happened. I thought the expansive parking lot and wide mall storefronts looked particularly eerie with a coating of snow over everything. I always like to see abandoned things, especially large ones like this, but it must be an eyesore for locals. Zoom in below and you can still see the APOLLO sign in the middle, along with a Van Heusen sign next to it. A few years after the mall closed, a local developer (whose family ow...

Original Grocery Tenant: Great American Address: 396 Broadway, Monticello, NY Opened:  before 1980 Closed:  after 1980 Later Tenants:  subdivided Photographed:  February 3, 2021 Today's post is a very quick one, with a look at a 15,800 square foot former Great American supermarket in downtown Monticello. The setup, too, is a bit like a Grand Union with its angled parking spaces and downtown location, but I don't know whether this was ever a Grand Union. But in 1980, this was a Great American, a New York cooperative or chain of supermarkets. There's only one left -- up in Prattsville, roughly 50 miles north. Monticello has another supermarket we're going to check out tomorrow on The Market Report !

Original Grocery Tenant: Great American Address: 100 Pike St, Port Jervis, NY Opened:  mid-1990s Closed:  late 1990s Previous Tenants:  WT Grant > Kmart (closed 1993) Later Tenants:  subdivided/non-grocery tenants Photographed:  February 3, 2021 Next to the Save-A-Lot we saw yesterday is this 46,000 square foot former WT Grant, later Kmart which ultimately relocated to Matamoras . For a brief period in the mid-1990s, the space was occupied by a Great American supermarket. It sat vacant until work began in 2015 on the renovation of the strip mall. These days, the space is occupied at least in part by a VA clinic. That's all for the city of Port Jervis itself, and up next we're headed northwest along the PA/NY border and the Delaware River for a couple days' worth of independent supermarkets. Our first is on The Independent Edition on Monday!

Original Grocery Tenant: A&P Address: 107 Jersey Ave, Port Jervis, NY Opened:  between 1957 and 1963 Closed:  unknown Later Tenants:  Subdivided - Save-A-Lot > Port Jervis Marketplace > non-grocery tenants Photographed:  February 3, 2021 Port Jervis these days has only one supermarket, a Save-A-Lot in a strip mall downtown. We'll check out that store tomorrow, but here's a look at another former supermarket just down the street from yesterday's . This 15,800 square foot A&P Centennial was expanded later to its present 25,000 square feet, but I'm not sure whether A&P did the expansion or not because I'm not clear on when the A&P closed. We do know, though, that it opened between 1957 and 1963 based on aerials. I also unfortunately don't know what occupied the space when A&P closed, but it later was subdivided with Save-A-Lot taking the largest spot. Save-A-Lot closed in 2008 but later reopened, then closed again between 2015 and 2018....