Grocery stores "back in the day"

[left-of-center2012]

https://www.tasteofhome.com/collection/this-is-what-food-shopping-looked-like-100-years-ago/

[dchill]

1. I've been in many stores like that.

Yeah, I'm old. Places like that were fascinating! Love those prices.

[MiniMe]

2. Prices are what I noticed

Coffee for $.33/pound. I'll take some of that

[Mr.Bill]

9. The worst thing about getting older

is you remember how cheap everything was. The memory of those low prices lasts far longer than the memory of what wages were then.

[Srkdqltr]

20. You only made .50 cents an hour..if you were lucky.

[jamesatemple]

24. True!! But my what a small fortune $4.00 or $5.00 PER DAY was.

Hamburger 15¢, gallon of gasoline 15¢... I don't think I've ever had as much free money as I had back then. And it sure beat pickin' cotton. Of course, living with my parents on the farm made a big difference, too! Still, I paid my way for living at home by working on the farm: Milking, feeding chickens, slopping hogs, hoeing the garden... Dang near killed me.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

22. LOL, it showed the French roast that I use every day.

I buy the beans and grind them at home - it's a great coffee, IMO.

They're around $5.80/lb. ($4.40/12-oz. bag) now.......

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

25. Minimum wage was probably $.25/hour when those pictures were taken.

Or maybe they were taken before there was a minimum wage.

[hlthe2b]

3. There are still stores similar to that in small rural towns, More refrigeration, yes, but not

dissimilar.

[virgogal]

28. So have I. As a child I

was fascinated with the tool that they would use to get things that were shelved too high to reach. I also remember the owner adding up the grocery order with a pencil......and on the brown paper bag.

[jayschool2013]

4. My grandparents ran the grocery store

My grandparents ran the grocery store in Salem, Nebraska (population around 400 at the time, now down to 150) until the road to Falls City was paved in the 1960s, which gradually sent shoppers to the big town (5,000 people!) to shop at the supermarket there.

The paving of the six-mile stretch doomed almost all of Salem's businesses, and what's left now is a village in disrepair and its residents living in poverty.

America's story writ small.

[left-of-center2012]

6. Salem, Nebraska

As of the census of 2010, there were 112 people, 52 households, and 28 families residing in the village.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem,_Nebraska#2010_census

[jayschool2013]

8. Thanks; I just looked that up, too

It's sad to think about what was once a thriving village with a couple of cafes, a couple of bars, a grocery store, a blacksmith, a meat processor and a rodeo ring has been reduced to a single bar — and a kind of seedy one at that.

[left-of-center2012]

11. The place I lived in through junior high ...

Smithport, PA (often confused with Smethport, PA) is so small it's not even on most Google sites.
It may have 30 people, and is a few miles from Glen Campbell, PA in Indiana County.

Smithport used to have two churches and a small gas station/general store but the store burned down.
The last time I visited in 2004, my old Methodist church had a sign reading
"Attendance last Sunday - 12".

[Wellstone ruled]

15. The Highways of change.

My Uncle was the Highway Maintenance Supervisor for a Western Wisconsin County years ago. Always asked him why the last half mile of a certain Highway was never maintained,and his reply,that is was because if that stretch of road was ever brought up to the same Standards as the rest of the road,the County Commissioner's feared Retail competition form Minnesota. After the Highway build out for the Interstate System,all those Border Roads were brought up to Standard. And yes,the Border Towns took a hit.

[left-of-center2012]

18. There was a gas station near our little community, outside town

The gas station owner was a well known Democrat.

One year the GOP state government put a new 'country road' through the area and missed his location by 1/2 mile.
It put the gas station out of business.

[Wellstone ruled]

44. Oh yes,

when one of the main Highways on the North end of my Home town was rebuilt . Same thing happened to the Old FDR Guy who ran the Mobile Station. Access to his Station was moved a full block down . And of course,he closed up shop about six months later. Again,it was all political. He would not vote for Nixon like all the other members of the Village Businessmen Association.

[The Genealogist]

39. Reminds me of the town where my mother and grandmother were born

Wheatland, Missouri. Last time I was up there, there was a Casey's and a couple or three other small businesses on the highway. I never remember it being a thriving place. But, my grandmother described it as a much different kind of place: a bank, grocery stores, drug store, jeweler, and other businesses. The town is actually around the same size; it is just that people no longer have to travel dirt roads to get to a city of much size. As with Salem that you mention, once paved roads came in, people could drive to bigger towns and cities to get what they needed.

[Ligyron]

5. The days before "Supermarket" was a noun.

The only thing super about them now is how easy they make it to over spend your budget.

[yaesu]

7. all I can remember is the cool toys & the Kool-Aid displays with the plastic airplanes that came

with the packs

[Hekate]

10. Mmm. I have an olfactory memory from my childhood. ...

Have to say, though, these particular photos are not from 1919 ( "100 years ago" ) -- you can tell from women's hair styles, dress length, and shoes.

Homey little stores like these got swallowed up by supermarket chains, of course -- but they live on in every immigrant community, don't they?

[CanonRay]

12. My parents had a grocery story in the 50's in Chicago

called the Wisconsin Dairy Store. Looked like these. I used to stock the shelves from the back room. When the first chain moved into the neighborhood, my father converted to a restaurant.

[left-of-center2012]

13. "my father converted to a restaurant"

In 1995,
I converted from Methodist to Jōdo Shinshū Buddhist.

[Glorfindel]

14. If you lived inside the city limits, you could call the grocer, place

your order, and have your groceries delivered to you. Everyone had a charge account, which was settled once a month. Same thing with cleaning and laundry. What a different world it was back then! (My father ran a dry cleaners. I started helping to deliver cleaning as soon as I was tall enough to keep the clothes up off the ground.) Thanks for sharing the pictures, left-of-center 2012.

[Lars39]

26. I knew of a grocery store that was still selling on credit well into the nineties.

The family decided to retire. Couldn't sell because it was a fire trap.

[dhol82]

52. We had a grocery store in Greenwich Village that had a credit and delivery policy

We had an account from 1977 to sometime in the eighties when they decided to expand.
It was really lovely to order either at the store or by phone and just put it on the account.
Got billed once a month.
I think one of the grandkids got an MBA and wanted to make the enterprise ‘go big.’ They went big until they went out of business.

[elleng]

16. My grandfather had a Deli in 'Harlem' NYC in the 'teens;'

Dad, the youngest, was born in '13, so I obviously don't have pics!

I did hear that Dad complained if he had to reach into the pickle barrel Saturdays, before he was going out on a date!

[George II]

17. We had stores like that in Brooklyn in the 1950s. Look at the prices! My mother used to send me...

...to the store to get cold cuts. We didn't ask for a half pound our quarter pound, we asked for "fifteen cents worth of baloney, twenty cents worth of American cheese". It was a whole different world back then.

[left-of-center2012]

19. twenty cents worth of American cheese

I think McDonald's charges 10¢ for a slice of cheese added to a burger these days.

[bucolic_frolic]

21. i recall wood floors and high ceilings in 60s A&Ps

and my favorite, prices applied with stampers and purple vegetable dye

[Haggis for Breakfast]

23. I remember A & P.

They started out as Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company.

I also remember Kroger (well, they're still around) and Pic'n'Pay and Fishers. In 60s Cleveland.

Also, Giant Tiger, Uncle Bill's, Robert Hall, Kresge's and Forest City. And Kenny Kings and Manners' BigBoys - where my Mum was a "car hop" waitress on roller skates !

Yes, I'm older than dirt !

[left-of-center2012]

30. As a child in the 50's we shopped A&P

An older brother told me of a time when he was on one side of the street and his wife on the opposite.

She yelled to him "I'm going to the A&P".
He claims he yelled back "I'm going to the Five and Dime to pee."

[Haggis for Breakfast]

31. Was the "Five and Dime" Woolworths ? Grants ?

[left-of-center2012]

33. Ask my brother

[George II]

36. In New York City it was the "Five and Ten", we had mostly Woolworths and a few Grants...

...when I was a teenager I worked as a cashier in a 3-store department store chain on Saturdays (nothing open on Sunday). We went to Woolworths' lunch counter every week for a grilled cheese sandwich and coke, occasionally splurge for french fries.

I think "five and dime" came about as the result of a song.

[Haggis for Breakfast]

37. Oh I remember sitting at the lunch counter of Woolworth's

with my Gran and getting a "malted." It was such a grand treat when I was ten.

[George II]

41. The first sit-in in North Carolina were at the lunch counter of a segregated Woolworths store....

That store is now a Civil Rights museum.

[Backseat Driver]

43. I worked at Woolworth's

as a cashier and at the lunch counter after school and weekends. I remember re-bagging huge bags of rabbit pellet food between register customers, and cleaning off the grill with the "stone" before closing. Maybe I made you a milkshake back in the day or grilled your hot dog AND the bun, LOL!

[emmaverybo]

45. And we called them "dime stores."

[captain queeg]

54. That's what I remember too

Every small town had one at least. I think we had two if you consider Ben Franklin to be one. The other one was just a local place. We were big enough (1500) to have an A&P and Western Auto; the WA had an amazing variety for being so small. All the little shops have closed up, filled by little boutique stores. The town is pretty old and has a quaint feel about it. I think it’s sort of a tourist place now, at least the downtown. I worked in a little meat market after school, the kind with fresh meat cut to your request. And as someone elsewhere mentioned, wrapped in butcher paper, added up the total on the wrapper in pencil. Early 70s, it was already kind of a dinosaur but there were lots of little farms around and our main business was cut and wrap their animals.

[emmaverybo]

57. Sounds so lovely. Yes, the "butcher paper" written on. Brings back memories...

[Grasswire2]

46. actually, "five and ten" were the lyrics in a song "Million Dollar Baby"

Here's a really interesting article on the genesis of the term "Five and Dime".

[link:https://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/51/messages/807.html|

[Backseat Driver]

40. The Woolworth's of my childhood

in the '60s, near East Side suburb of Cleveland "up the hill", had one of those creaking wooden floors and glass dividers on the countertops with wood cabinets beneath for the stock. Did you save Top Value or Green Stamps in the books? It was my job to either lick them, a few at a time or else apply the wet sponge to the sheets and paste them atop the pages; they wouldn't stick well if you applied too much water; boy, would I catch it from Mom then.

[llmart]

47. I remember the green stamps and Top Value stamps.

Weren't the green stamps Eagle stamps? There was something else called S&H green stamps. I saved these even after I was married. Bought baby supplies when I was pregnant with my first.

I grew up in the Northeast suburbs of Cleveland.

[llmart]

48. I remember all of them also.

Got my first new winter coat at Robert Hall when I was 19. My roommates and I used to troll Manners Big Boy in our VW Beetles looking for cute boys.

[Codeine]

49. I was still stamping prices

with one of those in the early 90s. I think we only switched to sticky tags in 92 or so, and after a few years we had scanners and didn’t need to price stuff anymore.

[Demovictory9]

27. there is an real store, with its original items for sale, left as a museum up near redding calif

the owner shut down in the 50s and donated it.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

29. My little country town of under 1,000 people in TN had....

(by my feeble memory) four grocery stores and most had home delivery, usually in an old woody van. The town was a magnet for farmers all around. But, as a boy my favorite stores were the Belknap Hardware store and Western Auto.

However, the staple of supply for everyday grocery items for farms was the country crossroads stores that seemed to have one of everything. They all had gas pumps too, and many were adjacent to a livestock feed store. In the 50s, it was more common to see mule-drawn wagons and tractors parked there than cars.

Dad and I would stop at crossroads stores while out ginseng hunting at get a 6-oz Coke and bag of peanuts for a dime...

[Doitnow]

32. I had an uncle who had a grocery store in Dorchester, MA. Every morning around

4 AM he'd go to the market to get produce for the day. Cousins worked in the store. The average price of a bag of groceries was $5 and they delivered. I remember the big white apron he would wear. The family lived upstairs over the store and electric trolleys went by their place.

[hunter]

50. My great uncle owned a deli / market / gas station. He did the same, drove to the big city...

... at 3 AM to load his truck with meat and produce.

The huge urban market places that catered to small town businesses were spectacular in those days. Only remnants of them remain.

My great uncle also owned the only liquor license in town. That's possibly how he made most of his money.

He sold his business for enough to retire on, mostly on account of the liquor license.

[ZZenith]

34. And nothing's wrapped in plastic!

How did they ever manage?!

[left-of-center2012]

35. Lots of white 'butcher paper'

And brown paper bags.

[Haggis for Breakfast]

38. And sales receipts written out in long-hand !!!!

[captain queeg]

55. We added it all up by hand, could you imagine kids today doing that?

[Golden Raisin]

42. I grew up in a small village in the 1950s. Although

there was a "modern" (1950s style) "supermarket" in the next town, the local grocery store where most people shopped was family-run (for generations), looked like some of the photos above, and you just put items "on account" when checking out --- no cash changed hands. They sent you a statement to your home and you settled by check.

[greymattermom]

51. My son is a user interface developer for the company that does Kroger's apps.

They are on their way to becoming totally digital. I have enough problems driving my new car because it keeps talking to my phone, and it thinks my garage doors are an obstacle. I don't need that at the grocery, so I avoid Kroger.

[Runningdawg]

53. My dad's first job was an apprentice to a butcher in 1943

I have his first paycheck - there is a notation at the bottom that he worked overtime and 6 days. The amount after taxes was $17.00 enough for him to also afford a used car, I have several receipts for his payments of 2.18 a week.

[captain queeg]

56. My dad said before the war 25 cents per hour was common

By the end of the war he was making a dollar an hour. He couldn’t believe it.

[Hotler]

58. Kroger sucks. nt