Stop & Shop's Sign of the Times

Here is a 1980’s photo of a great vintage Stop & Shop sign (with a clock, yet - always a welcome sight) from the 1957 Medford, Massachusetts store that was shown in a previous post and appears again in the second photo above. The sign photo comes to us through the courtesy of Larry Cultrera, a Medford native and host of a very entertaining and informative new website, Diner Hotline, which features great articles about and photos of that beloved American icon, the diner. Larry wrote a column on diners for many years for the Society for Commercial Archeology’s Journal before moving it to the wider internet audience this past October. Check his site out! Larry provides background on the photo as follows:

“I took the shot of the sign as I recall after Stop & Shop had moved to the other end of the parking lot (into a Super Stop & Shop) where Holiday Lanes (10 pin bowling alley) used to be, the sign remained by the old store for a while. Ironically as we speak, that newer Stop & Shop is inthe process of being replaced by an even newer one. The new one will be located next to the Stop & Shop gas station that sits at a right angle to the current store.

An old Ames Department Store was torn down (originally Zayre's). Zayre's and the Stop & Shop you have pictures of were the first 2 stores built in the Fellsway Shopping Plaza, Stop & Shop on the left end and Zayre's on the right. There were no buildings connecting them for a short time untilthey built the actual plaza that connected the 2 end buildings.”

One more note on the photo – in the background a “Medi-Mart” sign can be seen on a storefront with a logo style very similar to Stop & Shop’s late 60’s/70’s logo. Medi-Mart was a drugstore division of Stop & Shop that at its peak had 66 stores, most (not surprisingly) near Stop & Shop locations. Stop & Shop sold the division to Walgreens in 1986 in what at the time was Walgreens’ largest acquisition.

Stop & Shop, Bigger & Better

Stop & Shop was as aggressive as any major chain in replacing their small urban grocery stores with larger shopping center-based stores through the late fifties and early sixties. As the photos above show, they carried this out using an interesting variety of architectural designs, with an obvious focus on their large, block-lettered logotype.

They made a number of acquisitions during the period, most notably the Tedeschi chain in 1961, a six-store operation with stores located mostly in southeastern Massachusetts. Unlike Stop & Shop’s other acquisitions, management opted in this case to maintain the Tedeschi name and retain the existing management for those stores. Like a number of other chains, Stop & Stop also recognized the value of locating next to discount stores. Note the adjacent “J.M. Fields” sign in the first photo. Fields would be acquired by fellow supermarket chain Food Fair, in 1961, the same year in which Stop & Shop would themselves buy out the six-store Bradlees chain. By 1962, Stop & Shop was active in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Connecticut.

The photos above, top to bottom, show the following locations: Holyoke, Massachusetts in 1958, Hyde Park, MA also from ’58, Medford, MA from 1957, Manchester, Connecticut circa 1960, East Providence, RI from 1962, and Concord, New Hampshire from the same year.