Tops Friendly Markets
Opened: 2010
Previous Tenants: ACME Markets > P&C Foods
Location: 504 S Franklin St
Photographed: August 2020
It's time for another Tops tour! This one was also a P&C Foods, but unlike Skaneateles, it has not been remodeled inside.
Famous for its State Park-encompassed gorge (which is, by the way, unlike anything you'll ever see elsewhere but also frequently too crowded to enjoy) and racetrack, Watkins Glen is also home to this 43,000 square foot former P&C that actually has a 1950s-era ACME buried in there under that new facade. Side note, if you are a lover of ACME Markets history and miss Acme Style, make sure to check out the new Reddit forum created by longtime Acme Style contributor Rob Ascough!
It seems that Watkins Glen gets a lot of tourist traffic through it for those attractions, which probably is one of the reasons Tops hasn't renovated this store. Tourists staying in this immediate area are not making the 15-mile drive down to Horseheads where there are more supermarket choices, nor 20 miles east to Ithaca. Locals could conceivably do either of those, but it seems this Tops is a well-run, if older, store.
We enter to a slightly odd sale alcove (probably something else previously, but I'm not sure what; did this store ever have a pharmacy?) on the left side wall, with deli continuing along the left side of the grand aisle. Produce lines the right side of the grand aisle with bakery at the back. Meat lines the back wall of the store, with dairy and frozen in the last aisle and the rest of the frozen department on the front wall. The layout is so similar to the Trumansburg ShurSave that I wonder whether that store was ever a P&C.
The grand aisle area appears to be an expansion, with the original ACME having a higher ceiling visible to the right.
Produce on the right side...
...with deli on the left side.
Notice that this particular department sign (which is the same type as meat and seafood, which we'll see shortly) is different from the rest in the store. It appears to be from an older and more elaborate decor package. To me, it actually looks better than the newer signs installed in the other departments, but Tops' latest decor is by far superior to all of the above.
Moving into the grocery aisles, we see the beautiful high ceilings which I'm assuming are left from ACME (their 1950s stores frequently had very high ceilings).
Meats are on the back wall, with the service department down towards the last few aisles.
Tops seems to be moving towards integrating natural and organic selections in its stores rather than separating them to their own department, which is an improvement in my opinion. (In fact, when I revisited the Tops in Bath, a fantastic store, there were two managers supervising the changeover of the natural department to water and seltzer as natural products were moved into the regular aisles.)
One side of dairy and one side of frozen cases in the last aisle.
Frozen section in the front corner. The black cases in the middle are new, and they would've originally been coffin cases which allowed you to read the department sign that's now hidden on the front wall.
These cases are older.
Looking from the frozen alcove back towards the grocery aisles.
A look across the front-end before we head out of Watkins Glen! And now, having finished Seneca Lake, we're moving right along to the next lake west, Keuka Lake, which is also the last lake we'll be covering on this round before we head into the Southern Tier. We have a really cool independent grocery store at the top of Keuka Lake on The Independent Edition tomorrow!
There's one in Cooperstown that hasn't seen any interior renovations either. I don't have a lot of good pictures so it might be on my list of stores to revisit. It has older shopping carts and a different decor package, but said decor doesn't appear to be a standard Tops package either.
ReplyDeleteAh yes, another great P&C conversion! The exterior is very similar to this one.
DeleteNot to mention the same aisle markers and register lane lights (which I have no idea if they still have, since Tops has been replacing them with new ones in mass for the past few years). That one is definitely a must-see as that one is on the list of stores to be divested.
DeleteYou might be on to something with Trumansburg although in your Trumansburg post it says the store opened in 1982. Did it open as a Big M? P&C was the parent company of Big M and it wasn't uncommon for a Big M franchisee to buy P&C stores and keep them operating as Big M's.
ReplyDeleteGood point! I hadn't thought of that.
DeleteThis store opened as a new build P&C in 1992/93. It was never remodeled and used to have a pharmacy to the left of customer service. They struggled to keep a Pharmacist and that ended up closing the pharmacy and they made it a seasonal area. The aisle markers and lane lights were changed from a newer P&C store after Tops took over.
DeleteThanks for the details!
DeleteThis store was originally an Acme that was purchased by P&C (PennTraffic) in 1995. My mother was the Head Cashier here from 1995-2006 as she worked at another Acme that P&C closed after purchasing & had to transfer to this store. I worked here as my first job at 15 in 2001. The store had several minor remodels over the years, but as far as I know, it never had a pharmacy. The produce/ deli departments used to have a very large salad bar/ prepared foods area (like 15'X15') so the alcove as you come in was used as overflow for produce & had a floral desk & the greeting cards. Eventually, it was changed into an area with bulk packs of waters & seltzers. The "fancy" department signs were part of a remodel shortly after P&C took over. The "Sunburst" signs/ aisle markers/ register numbers were part of a remodel in about 2004 when they also took out the Bath National Bank that used to be where the bottle return machines are now. They were all there while I still worked there in college.
ReplyDeleteThe ShurSave in Trumansburg was not a P&C, but it might have been an old Acme too. The P&C in Trumansbug was 61 W. Main St.