Tag: Colonial

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052307-colonial

This interesting snippet from a 1968 Colonial Stores grand opening ad from Atlanta comes to me from Robby Delius. It’s particularly noteworthy because it makes such use of the “Big Star” motif that would ultimately be applied to all Colonial Stores by the mid-1970s.

052307-safeway

Also from 1968 (and from the same source) is this grand opening ad for a Safeway store in Richmond. There’s nothing really remarkable about this one, I guess. It’s just, as the ad says, really ultra-modern. And the cartoon shoppers look so darned happy…

More reader submissions to come.

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021207-colonial-ws

Colonial Store, 514 North Cherry Street, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Open 27 October 1938. Closed 24 May 1958. Since demolished. Photo from the now-defunct Twin City Sentinel.

Originally a Big Star, this 12,000 square foot store was widely regarded as Winston-Salem’s first self-service supermarket. It came shortly after the opening of the David Pender Grocery Company’s first Big Star supermarket in downtown Greensboro, thirty miles east.

What does this all mean? Only that I’m well into my research on the upcoming Winston-Salem section of this site. Comments and submissions welcome.

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Spotlight on Atlanta, Georgia. The following logos are from the 17 August 1978 issue of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. The newspapers combined publication that day due to a blackout downtown. The actual newspaper was only four pages, but the food sections had apparently already been printed and were included in their entirety.

The Big Apple and Food Giant chains have been discussed on the Message Board.

020607-ap

A&P would remain a fairly major player in Atlanta until 1999, when it sold many of its stores to Publix.

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Big Star, built on the foundation of Colonial Stores, was purchased by Grand Union in 1978. The Atlanta division lasted longer than the rest of Big Star, until 1992, when most of the stores were sold to A&P. Big Star also operated the food departments of Richway discount department stores, in much the same way that Colonial had operated Kmart Food stores in some areas.

020607-kroger

Kroger is the only one of the 1978 chains to still have operations in Atlanta.

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I really don’t know anything about Thriftown and Big Buy.

020607-winndixie

And we all know about Winn-Dixie. Enough said.

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A limited edition collection of vintage supermarket drawings from the 1970s was recently discovered in North Carolina.

OK, they were all done by Yer Humble Host as a precocious child. But they do demonstrate that I’ve been really obsessed with this stuff for a very long time. I think I captured the essence of the Centennial A&P pretty well for a six-year-old, thanks. I was also proud of my Big Food Star; I think my technique had really matured by age eleven.

I guess that’s enough self-indulgence for one day. Now you all know what a big geek I was, even as a child.

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