Grocery shopping in the 1950s

[Bucky]

Some traditions change

[Bucky]

1. parking lot photo of an A&P in the 50s

no strollers, no kids

[we can do it]

2. With 1960's cars?

[csziggy]

3. Here's a Publix (Florida chain) in the 1950s

The almost could be the store I most remember Mom going to for groceries when I was a kid. It's definitely the same style!

[RebelOne]

8. Publix style has not changed much throughout the years.

To me, the only difference is that there are not any S&H Green Stamps now.

[csziggy]

9. They went through their "Miami Vice" period

When everything was turquoise and salmon pink. Now they seem to be more Spanish Colonial style with stucco frontage.

The Publix in Bartow opened when I was about 6 in the first shopping center in town. It had that batwing thing at the front. I remember how much Mom liked the new store - the little neighbor grocery which had been the only choice previously had a very limited selection and their meat quality was poor to bad. Produce was nearly non-existent since many people would drive to Plant City or Auburndale to buy from the farmer's stands. Mom, as a working mother, did not have time for that so we ate a lot of canned vegetables.

Publix early along made their mark with buying produce direct from the farmers and shipping to their stores in their own trucks rather than buying from distributors. Their produce tended and still tends to be very good, at least in their Florida stores.

I hate that their management is right wing, but they are the best choice for value for money in this town. We will be getting a Whole Foods store soon - they bought up an old shopping center, tore it down and are in the process of building an entirely new place. I'm not sure if they will get my business, though.

[Coyotl]

17. I remember the poisonous-glue stamps everyone licked

Maybe we finally found an explanation to the outbreak of paranoid politics in the 50s

[pipi_k]

4. Wow...memories!

The closest store to our house was an A & P.

I loved going to the A & P. The entire store smelled of the coffee that was ground fresh at the checkout.

Mom would walk with us girls to the store...my youngest sister in the stroller. Whenever we went anyplace, we dressed up. It wasn't like today where people run around looking like bums.

A trip downtown, on the bus, was an extra special treat for us. Mom even wore white gloves for that.

[femmocrat]

10. A & P had the best glazed donuts.

They came in a rectangular box. They were sugary and drippy. Remember those?

[blueamy66]

20. Yeah, what's with wearing pajamas to the grocery store?

Are people that lazy these days?

[kurtzapril4]

24. Get off my lawn! ;-) n/t

[siligut]

5. Baby Boom and they just left the kids outside with the dogs

And everybody wore hats. Strollers have gotten smaller, women wear pants now and fewer high-heels.

Fire hydrants haven't changed much except in some cities people are allowed to paint them.

[Populist_Prole]

6. The A&P was the first store I remember going to as a kid

We went there a lot and small things jog my memory. The smell of floor wax and meat and produce. The sight of the round floor buffer, which I was fearful of as a somewhat timid toddler. The growling howl/whine of the automatic doors opening/closing ( I guess they were hydraulic ) The banal horn-based music/muzak playing throughout the store. Spotting my kindergarten teacher there and reacting with amazement they actually exist as people outside the school.

[Graybeard]

14. The aroma of the big coffee grinder.

I loved the smell of it. People bought bags of whole beans
(8 O'Clock, Jovan and Red Circle brands) and dumped them in the big electric grinder that was on a table. One could select the grind (fine, medium or coarse) and it came down a little chute into the coffee bag.

[HereSince1628]

7. Remarkably like the A&P my mother shopped

I remember the produce displays in the windows, and the tiles above the window as being shiny.

[davsand]

11. I was born in 1960, and I remember the A & P fondly.

The smell of the fresh ground coffee is the first thing I remember. The second fond memory is the huge burlap bags of roasted peanuts... That store seemed HUGE to me as a little kid. It was always an adventure to go there, and if I was good, mom would always buy me a book from the "Little Golden" display.

My mom loved the A & P but she always bought meat at the tiny local store by our house, and she made frequent trips to a couple different produce markets for any fruits or veggies we weren't growing ourselves. Mom had a few cardinal rules of cooking that she drilled into my head--that I still live by. One of those rules is to ALWAYS establish a good relationship with your butcher. Another was, whatever you cook, your final product quality is only gonna be as good as the ingredients you put into it. To this day, I buy 8:00 Coffee and grind it, and I know the names of not only the butchers but also their kids' names.




Laura

[tonekat]

12. Oh yes, the A&P with mom!

I remember going to the A&P with mom, getting cinnamon bread and saying hi to the woman who put it out, and the heavenly smell of the coffee after it was ground in the checkout! And the one we went to in my small upstate hometown had the wheeled tracks where they put your (paper) grocery bags in a bin, and the bin went zipping out through holes in the front windows so you could pull up with your 1959 Fairlane and get the bags in the trunk!

[mykpart]

13. The A & P in the 50s had

real butchers on duty who would trim the meat you chose and wrap it in white paper. The produce department had a clerk on duty to weigh your fruit and vegetables, put them in a brown paper bag and mark the price with a large black crayon. There was a place in the front of the store to leave your reusable soda pop bottles for deposit credit. The checkout clerks trusted you to be truthful when they asked if you returned any bottles. I don't ever remember being left on the sidewalk while my mom shopped. In the car, maybe, but not on the sidewalk. She had her standards.

[John_UAC]

15. Spam deleted by NRaleighLiberal (MIR Team)

[Graybeard]

16. "Self-service" changed shopping forever.

It was pretty much accepted in the 50s (A & P went self-service in 1936) but in the beginning it was controversial. Until then one went to the grocer's and told the clerk at the front counter what you needed and he went to the shelves and got it for you.

[Coyotl]

18. We had a co-op store, and bought flour, salt, sugar, only a few essentials, while

everything else came from the land. Milk, eggs, meats, vegetables, berries, even fruits came from our own land. We sold more to the store than we bought. We cured our own hams and bacon, made sausage. We needed two chest freezers plus the canning pantry, and summer was a very busy time of stocking the larders.

[MrYikes]

19. We had a little corner market called Runyons

It had a covered porch entrance where he kept bulk potatoes, melons, bushels of apples, that sort of thing, then inside the smells hit you, produce, meats the wood floor, two aisles, great candy selection, penny, and the pop machine with bottles sitting in cold water. Mr. Runyon always gave the best candy from his house at halloween.
The Standard Grocery was our first supermarket and mom loved it, cursing the little markets saying they had been overcharging her all those years. We would drive there on Friday evenings, shop and load up our '49 Crosley and try to get home. We three boys had to push the car up the hill because the 18 horsepower engine wouldn't make it with the groceries. I remember the year she cooked a bad turkey for Thanksgiving (it smelled really bad--yet the dogs liked it) the manager opened the store, gave her another turkey and made it right the next time she went shopping there.

[rug]

21. Here it is in 1915.

As far from that picture as that picture is from us.

http://www.npr.org/2011/08/23/139848775/the-great-a-p-revolutionizing-modern-retail

[Art_from_Ark]

22. The first supermarket I remember was IGA,

around 1963, located next door to the world's first Wal-Mart store, which at the time was called Wal-Mart Discount City. They had paper sacks that had a drawing of a woman shopping and had the slogan "For the lady who pushes the cart".

[krispos42]

23. Look at that diversity!

[raccoon]

25. I guess everyone was white and middle-class then. :silly: nt