Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Food Fair's Philly Trifecta - 1966







On the same day in April 1966, Food Fair opened three stores in greater Philadelphia of this exact prototype, shown first in an artist’s rendering, than in a photo of the real thing (or one of the three real things, I guess). Look at it – an ordinary supermarket, transformed into something pretty special with the addition of the superb, Calder-esque metalwork out front.

Food Fair as a company was in fine shape at the time, coming off a $1.2 billion sales year and a tally of 554 stores (including 54 J.M. Fields department stores) located along the entire Eastern seaboard and as far away as Southern California (the 51 Fox Markets). The honeycomb-style logo was Food Fair’s standard in the 1960’s.

19 comments:

  1. Wow! That arch reminds me of a rainbow. Did any of the buildings that had this after Food Fair went under retain this design?

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  2. I'd love to know that myself. Maybe someone from the Philly area can enlighten us. My guess is with the maintenance and painting costs involved, those arches probably came down pretty fast after FF went under, if not before.

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  3. The arches were used as far away as Flordia on Food Fair stores, they became something of a Food Fair trademark and were not copied by other chains-Safeway's marina/gable stores of the 60's had counterparts around the country, Penn Fruit, Kohl's, Albertson's, Alpha Beta, Acme and many others while the colonial A&P was copied by Finast(First National), Red Food, and occasionally Grand Union and Colonial.

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  4. I've seen pictures of Stop and Shop and even Piggly Wiggly colonial-type stores as well.

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  5. I know of one of these Food Fair stores still standing, a free-standing unit near the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge in Philly. It has been boarded up and abandoned since I first spotted it years ago but the arches remain. Never knew this was a Food Fair and was allways curious as to what was there-but I figured it was once a supermarket.

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  6. It would intersting to see this one, even if it's boarded up. I'm amazed that the arches weren't taken down long ago.

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  7. Reminds me of the Southgate Shopping Center in Lakeland Florida that was seen in the movie Edward Scissorhands.

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  8. Here is a photo I took in 2004 of a former location in Philadelphia.

    http://groups.msn.com/dcgrocery/philadelphiaregion.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=1306


    I have lots of older style Food Fairs on my site at http://www.dcgrocery.com

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  9. Gary - Amazing that the steelwork is still in place. You have great stuff on your site, I'll add it to my links list. Thanks!

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  10. The former Food Fair in Easton still looks like this; in the late 70s it became part of Laneco's Food Lane chain, until they were closed by Supervalu in 2001. In 2002 it became a Save-A-Lot, but also closed late last month. I have a picture on my Flickr photostream linked to my name.

    In the early 80s when I was little, the Food Lane actually had a digital sign on the building that showed the hours open that day!

    Josh

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  11. Josh - Those are great photos! Food Fair and Penn Fruit built some of the best there ever were, and I'm glad to see these fine examples still standing!

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  12. The 3 stores that were opened that day were located at Keystone and Robbins (near the Tacony Bridge as John F has stated), 3rd and Lehigh and I believe 31st and Reed in South Philadelphia. I worked at the Robbins Avenue store for a year and it was a really nice store. It was converted to Pantry Pride in the fall of 1968. I think 3rd and Lehigh is still a supermarket.

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  13. Neil - Thanks for supplying that information! Should jog the memory of Philadelphia readers who were around back then!

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  14. The former Food Fair/Pantry Pride at Bustelton Avenue, below byberry Road, also had this design. It was part of the Leo Mall, which also had a J. M. Fields, a Rite Aid, and the Leo Theatre in it.

    Across the street from the Leo Mall was a colonial/centennial designed A&P Supermarket that later became a Grossman, and since been remodeled into a modern day Rite Aid.

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  15. MikeRa - Thanks very much for that info! As you know, I'm sure, FF owned J.M. Fields, but combo stores (I'm assuming they were side-by-side in the location you mention) were a bit rarer than one would think.

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  16. To all,

    Excellent pictures. Here in North Jersey, we had several striking Food Fair styles, including the "rounded" arch and also a "squared off" version that appeared from a distance like a large "W". In Bloomfield, NJ, there still exists a store with the rounded arch, and it is in business as a dollar store -- a great walk down memory lane!

    Penn Fruit Fan

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  17. Ask and ye shall receive:

    http://www.philly.com/philly/living/20110512_Tradition_lives_on_at_Tacony_Billiards.html

    (I think the link is to the free part of philly.com)

    The amazing coincidence? I just discovered your site today and this was in the Philly Inquirer today as well!

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  18. Picture #4 in the linked article shows the facade of the former Food Fair.

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  19. This actual picture is were I grew up in Far Northeast Philadelphia. This is THE store where we got our groceries in the 60's and 70's. Bustleton Avenue location in the Somerton section of the city. Sometime in the late 60's this store was bought out by Pantry Pride and yes they kept the arches into the early 90's!

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