A Tale of Two Guys

A familiar sight in Eastern Seaboard cities from the 1950’s through the very early eighties, the Two Guys discount store chain was founded in Harrison, New Jersey by a pair of brothers, Herbert and Sidney Hubschman, with a single 600 square foot store in 1946. The brothers soon established a reputation for selling radios, televisions and household appliances at razor-thin margins, much to the consternation of their competitors, one of whom dubbed them “Those two b@5#@rds from Harrison”.

Choosing to wear the putdown as a badge of honor, the Hubschmans adopted a sanitized version of it as their company name. The company was legally known, in fact, as “Two Guys From Harrison, Inc.” until 1959 when they acquired O.A. Sutton Corporation, a manufacturer of electric fans, air conditioners and heaters, who would become a major supplier to Two Guys and eventually to other chains as well. Sutton’s fan product line had the flashy-sounding name of “Vornado”, which became the name of the combined entity. The store moniker had been shortened by this time to “Two Guys”.

Through the 1950’s into the early sixties, the company built ever larger stores, averaging between 135,000 and 190,000 square feet by 1964. The stores initially had leased soft goods departments in addition to the core appliance and electronics offerings, along with a large supermarket area. By the mid-60’s, Vornado had taken over most of the leased departments and ran them as in-house operations. The company was early to join the trend towards building near controlled-access highways, standard practice for those that followed, right up to today’s Wal-Mart Supercenters.

In 1964, Vornado told a New York Times reporter that they would no longer include supermarket departments in new Two Guys stores (though in actuality they did on several more), citing poor profitability in food operations. Two Guys’ arch-competitor E.J. Korvette was plagued with a similar problem, and would ultimately decide to dump food stores altogether. Ironically, Vornado would purchase a supermarket chain on the West Coast, Food Giant, in 1967.

Sadly, by the end of 1964, both Hubschman brothers were no longer part of the “Two Guys” organization. Sidney resigned from the company in November, 1963, and Herbert, company chairman at the time, passed away in September of the following year.

The photos, showing a typical Two Guys store exterior and several department views are from 1962.

Many thanks to Steve, who identified this store's location as on Rt. 10 in East Hanover, NJ and sends the following memories:

After a closer examination of the "TWO GUYS" main entrance photo, I can say that the store was located in East Hanover, NJ.

I remember shopping there many times as a kid and that to the right of the store was the attached liquor store. (You will see blue panels about waist high where the car is parked in front, with a man standing by an open car door.) Over the doors window panels read "BAR" "BEER" "SODA". That’s where my Dad would take me to buy Brookdale soda.

To the left of the main entrance there is another length of blue panels, where the shopping carts where kept. Notice there are automatic side doors as in the front. The liquor store did not have the automation doors.

The interior photos look to be from the same store as I remember.

For a short time my Dad used to work at the liquor store part time. The store had a separate entrance from the Main Store. I don't believe it was affiliated with "TWO GUYS" in any way.
Your picture of the Grand Union Meat Dept. looks identical to the Two Guys Meat Dept. I can remember those diagonal 2 way mirrors! They also use to slide open for the butchers to load the display shelves below.

One thing not mentioned is that TWO GUYS had a Lumber Dept. building located on the highway before the main store. The building had a fire back the early-mid 70's and a new one was built next to the main store. The original Lumber Dept. store was gutted and made into a Goodyear Tire Center. Too bad though the building was demolished 2 months ago and I don't know what's being built now.The buildings are still there along with Vornado Warehousing in the back.

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