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What's This All About?

Groceteria.com is a site about the history of the American supermarket, from both an architectural and a business perspective. As a general rule, the site covers events and stores of the 1920s through the 1980s.

This is not a site about current supermarket issues and operations, except in historical perspective, and it is not connected with nor owned by any supermarket chain.

From 1999, at the site's debut:

My friend Duncan used to theorize that the price of a can of tuna could be used as the basic measure of any given city's cost of living. He was right. You can learn an awful lot about a place by visiting its supermarkets.

Supermarkets are one of the most important and overlooked elements of American life. I'm fascinated by them, and my road trips always include visits to the local chains, from Winn-Dixie in the south to Giant in Baltimore, from Cub Foods and Rainbow in Minneapolis to Kohl's in Wisconsin. Harris Teeter, Alpha Beta, Piggly Wiggly, and the "holy trinity" of Safeway, Kroger, and A&P: I've done more than my share...

I'm really picky about my supermarkets. By this, I don't mean that I shop in the newest, sleekest stores with the most fabulous produce departments. On the contrary, I'm more drawn to smaller and older stores which are perpetually in danger of being either closed or "upgraded".

I really hate the new breed of supermarkets which rival Macy's for square footage. I'm not too fond of small corner stores either. I think I'd be happiest if supermarket evolution had ceased around 1968 or so. I usually make weekend treks to a long-forgotten Lucky store on Alemany Boulevard and a mid-1960s era Safeway on 7th Avenue just to satisfy this craving for dowdy little markets.

Of course, an added benefit to these stores (aside from their manageable scale) is the fact that they're almost universally less crowded than the mega-markets. In 1940, Safeway operated about 75 stores in San Francisco (about half using the Safeway name and the other half licensed under the Piggly Wiggly system). As of 1999, there are thirteen Safeway stores in the city, and that's still more than their closest two competitors combined. As the big retailers have begun operating fewer and larger stores, they have also provided their customers with a hellish, crowded, and generally nerve-racking shopping experience.

It's a little sad that people don't get nearly as nostalgic about their old supermarkets as they do about drive-ins and movie palaces. Maybe it's because supermarkets are too "everyday" and no one could imagine them to be a source of sentiment or worthy of a glance back in time, right?

Wrong. I've been looking at old supermarkets a lot lately. I've been researching them and even taking pictures of their remains. I've been leafing through musty old city directories at the library to find out what used to be where. I've realized two things: First, this is a very interesting subject, about which I might get very obsessive. Second, I really need a life.

Speaking of tuna, I scored two cans of Bumblebee for 60 cents at my "hidden" Lucky store today. They wanted 95 cents at Safeway...