The Stoplight...the (unofficial) history of Stop & Shop! I'm very proud to introduce this brand-new website which will, hopefully someday, be the complete history of every Stop & Shop location. For now, it's a start with a lot of history and links to coverage that's already out there on these locations. I took on this website (which was previously in more traditional blog form) from the nice folks at A&P Preservation and Alexweb8, the past authors of the blog, earlier this fall and I've spent a few months putting together a lot of content for the website. Hope you like it!
And of course, happy new year!
Seems like a refurbished website based on the posts going back to 2019.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Stop & Shop stores, I have pictures of the Holyoke store (2265 Northampton) and two of the Poughkeepsie, NY locations, however they are from 2018 and I'm not sure if any of them have had significant updates since.
Yes -- A&P Preservation and Alexweb8 did those first two posts a while back.
DeleteAre those pictures on your blog? I'll have to check it out if they are, and if so, I'll add links to those posts on their respective pages.
Happy New Year!
ReplyDeleteYour new blog looks really cool!
My family has a house in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and my favorite Stop & Shop memories involve going to a Bradlees/Stop & Shop shopping center in Orleans. The name of the center is the Cranberry Cove Plaza, and along with the Bradlees/Stop & Shop combo, there was (and still is) a Papa Gino's in that shopping center's parking lot.
Stop & Shop's first store in Cranberry Cove Plaza opened on June 19, 1972. I was surprised to learn that Bradlees did not open concurrently with it; instead, a discount department store called Giant co-anchored the shopping center. Giant closed in late 1973 or early 1974, and Bradlees did not open until May 18, 1978. (I'm not sure if that building was anything in between. I'm also uncertain as to when Papa Gino's opened, although I would guess that it opened in the 1980s. It was open by 1988, as that was the first summer I frequented the restaurant.)
The Stop & Shop was expanded--and became a Super Stop & Shop--sometime between 1973 and 1988. After the expansion, the Stop & Shop had the familiar octagonal exterior facade. The Orleans Bradlees stayed open until that entire chain folded in early 2001. Interestingly, the Bradlees building was subsequently demolished, and a new, larger Stop & Shop was built on that site and opened in 2004. The former Stop & Shop building received an extensive facelift and now houses a TJ Maxx (which I believe opened in 2005).
Apart from the Stop & Shops on Cape Cod (which I prefer over the ones in New Jersey), Cape Cod is an interesting place for supermarket aficionados because A&P didn't pull out of the Cape until 2003. There was a great discussion of this topic on Groceteria.com many years ago, which I'll link below:
https://www.groceteria.ca/board/viewtopic.php?t=2119
My favorite of the Cape Cod A&Ps was the "little Chatham" store (at 12 Queen Anne Road), which opened sometime between 1955 and 1959 and lasted all the way until 2003. I guess you could say it was a Centennial, although it lacked the triangular peak in the middle. The store was especially small and outdated, even by A&P standards, and I think the last decor update it received occurred in the 1970s! And though the front of the store sported the A&P "sunrise" logo, there was an old, cursive-style A&P logo that remained on one of the sides of the building. After the 2003 closing, the A&P became the original location for the "Chatham Village Market." Sadly, I think CVS demolished the building (about ten years ago) for a new store, although it's possible that the building still exists but was extensively altered. (A new Chatham Village Market opened next to the CVS.)
--A&P Fan
Thanks for the details on the various Stop & Shops on Cape Cod! (By the way, not sure if you know this A&P Fan, but I am actually living about half of the time in northern NJ and the other half in Worcester, MA, so I have lots of Mass stores -- although only one on Cape Cod right now -- to post in the future!) I'll add your details to my listings of the Cape Cod stores.
DeleteZachary, thanks for your response.
DeleteI did not know that you live roughly half the time in Worcester. Despite my familiarity with Cape Cod, Plymouth is the only Massachusetts town outside the Cape that I've ever visited (and that visit occurred when I was quite young). There are so many other places in that state I hope to visit someday, and I'm very much looking forward to your future profiles of Massachusetts supermarkets.
--A&P Fan
The new blog looks great! I'm looking forward to future posts over there.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
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