As a child did you have a neighborhood grocery store?

[Spinneret]

yes

 

[PrincessShmoo]

As a child did you have a neighborhood grocery store?​

Yes. But we shopped on base at the commissary. On occasion we'd go to one of the the local stores (an independent store called Top Hat Market or a Safeway) for one or two items, if needed.

 

[Meriweather]

no.
We always had to go a bit away to a real grocery store.
There was a 7-11 across the street from my middle school. They did a great business after school

 

[tvguy]

Several. We had a chain grocery store 7/10ths of a mile west of our house. We had another chain grocery store 7/10ths of a mile east of our house. We had another chain grocery store 1.2 miles north of our house. We had yet another chain grocery store 1.5 miles north of our house.
No shortage of places to shop but the one west of our house was the one we normally went to.

 

[AnnaS]

Yes, back home where I was born - it was down the block. The owners had a composition book and kept a running tab for my parents.

 

[ncc1701]

We had an Acme chain store about 1 mile and then an A&P chain store. 2 blocks away. The A & P opened when I was around 6/7 years old.
There is nothing now in the A&P location and the Acme is now an Aldi's.
I longer live in my hometown, but my Mom's & Sister( & her family) do.
I do have an Acme in my town about a mile or so away.

 

[nw6675]

All I can picture are the ashtrays at the end of the aisles.

 

[Jml813]

Yes, the Publix was less than a mile away!

 

[Skywalker]

Yes, back home where I was born - it was down the block. The owners had a composition book and kept a running tab for my parents.

Yes I can relate to that. I remember my parents went away for vacation and left us alone (hey it was the 80's) and they told the local grocery store to run a tab of whatever we bought and my parents would pay it when they returned. Nowadays, I can't even imagine lol

 

[goofyernmost]

Two actually, one was a small building with just a few basic items but was also a butcher. As kids we went there for penny candy. It was owned by Mr. Ecormant (sp?) and basically across the road from that was another family owned store called Lapan's Groceries. It was bigger and had more items and was less a gloomy type. It had bright fluorescent lighting and staff, not many but enough to make a difference. I liked Mr. Ecormant more because he always threw in a few more candies for no charge. He mostly made his money selling meat. He knew us all by name and if a parent sent the kid over to get a pack of smokes he always gave them to us even though we were only around 5 years old. We didn't even have to bring money, our parents had accounts with him and once a week they would stop in and pay him. Damn I must be old.

 

[BlueStarryHat]

Yes, we had a few. My favorite was Phil and Sam's, which was down the street from my grandparents' house in South Philly. I went there very often with my grandmother. Phil ran the front, and Sam was the butcher, and we would go to the back of the store and order meat from him-he always did a Donald Duck impression for us kids.

 

[bcla]

We moved around the same town where I grew up, so it varied. But I wouldn't say it was a neighborhood grocery store, but a full fledged supermarkets within walking distance of a couple of those residences. I think at the peak, my smallish town of about 23,000 might have had five supermarkets. I remember maybe one neighborhood grocery store in the entire town. Later on we moved to a residential part of town without any retail for at least a mile. It was a heck of a walk to get groceries, but obviously most residents had cars.

 

[BrianL]

We had a store a couple of blocks away. There were several in town, but it wasn't really a chain, but several individual owners who banded together for advertising/coupons. They were often still referred to by just the last name of the owner by older folks. The shared name is gone, but actually a coupld of these stores are still open and bearing the name of their original owner - well, one is for sure anyway. Going into it is like a going into a time-machine!

 

[luvthatduke]

Yep. We had a country store right up the block.
I would walk up to get a pound of "square" cheese,
turkey breast, Wonder bread, and a jar of mayo if we were out.
I liked getting a cold bottle of Yoo Hoo,
and I always bought a 25c Hershey's w/almonds.
Also, a 25c Drumstick ice cream cone.
Sometimes an Otter Pop for 5c.
Nice memories...

We had supermarkets in the other other towns,
but we used our little store for lunchmeat,
ground hamburger (hand ground right there at the butcher counter in back),
and snacks.

 

[barkley]

He knew us all by name and if a parent sent the kid over to get a pack of smokes he always gave them to us even though we were only around 5 years old.

that's my memory of the neighborhood store as well. in hindsight it would have been wise for the underage teen smokers to have enlisted us little ones to buy them packs cuz we were never questioned about it.

 

[amcnj]

There were two general grocery store options within a block or three from our house. A regional chain grocery store and a family owned grocery store. The family owned one is still there today. They were accompanied by a fish store, two bakeries, two delis and a milk store. There were also two national (?) chains at two ends of town, 1.5 to 2 miles away.

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

Yes, it was one of my favorite places. (I don't actually remember because I was too young) but I have been told that when I was young escaped the house and tried to go by myself. I was pushing my own stroller down the sidewalk. I was intercepted by a neighbor and returned home.

 

[LoveSpringsteen]

We had a small little store in our neighborhood that had a small selection of items - canned, frozen, bread and deli. The best part for all the kids in the neighborhood was the penny candy grab bags behind the counter and we got to pick the candy. Bottle pops, candy cigarettes, butterscotch disks, root beer barrels, licorice. Great memories!

 

[antmaril]

Yes, and it’s still there 65 years later.

 

[liquid17]

Yes, back home where I was born - it was down the block. The owners had a composition book and kept a running tab for my parents.

I remember my Mom sending me to the store across the street when I was in the First grade ( I was 5/6) to buy stuff. We had an account and I think she'd pay up once a week?

There was also a butcher around the corner and she would send me with cash to buy a dollar's worth of chopped meat.

That was in 1971. My sister was born that year and I guess I was considered old enough to help!