1025 Youngs Ford Rd, Gladwyne, PA

Original Tenant: A&P
Address: 1025 Youngs Ford Rd, Gladwyne, PA

Opened: 1960s

Closed: 1983

Later Tenants: SuperFresh (1983-2015) > ACME Markets (2015-2019)

Photographed: December 2021

Gladwyne, PA is currently without a supermarket, since its ACME Markets location closed in February of 2019. Although the community lost its roughly 25,000 square foot ACME, its tiny but remarkable 1400 square foot Gladwyne Market House is still going strong just across the street. But wait, let's back up and review the history of this location.

From the history I can piece together, this store opened in the 1960s as an A&P Centennial store at roughly 15,000 square feet. At some point thereafter, probably in the 1970s, it was expanded again by around 6,000 square feet. It looks like at the same time, an additional 2,000 square foot storefront (presumably a bank) was constructed out of the expansion, but was not part of the supermarket. I assume the store received the standard 1970s treatment at the time. In 1983, the store was converted to SuperFresh, along with the rest of the Philadelphia area A&Ps. Around 2006, the store received a major remodel to Fresh 2.0, which likely involved installing the facade seen here today. And in late 2015, the store closed and was sold in A&P's bankruptcy auction to ACME. You can see the store's final SuperFresh days on A&P Preservation here.

Although this store was once a top performer for A&P/SuperFresh, given its many and deluxe expansions and remodels, it was an underperforming ACME and the chain announced they'd be closing the store by February 2019. It has remained vacant until shortly before my visit in December 2021, when local chain McCaffrey's Food Markets announced they had acquired the store and intended to reopen it as their first Main Line location.

We see what may be the beginning of McCaffrey's work (or possibly just the state that ACME left the store in), with this shot of the grand aisle on the right side of the store. We can generally piece together the store's layout, too, here: produce in the front right corner, bread in the back right, deli/prepared foods on the back and left sides of the grand aisle.

It looks like there was only one way to get through from the grand aisle to the rest of the store, seeing as there's a pizza oven in the way in the back.

Here's a look at the exit foyer, to the left of the entrance. (The picture before this one was shot through the exit doors.) Unfortunately, that wraps up our look at the interior but let's check out the property just a little...

Clearly, the whole building will need some freshening up when McCaffrey's moves in. Based on their other stores, more of which we'll be seeing out here in PA, they will likely turn it into a beautiful, modern supermarket.

We can see the expansion on the left side here, as well as the former bank or other storefront in the back to the left. Tomorrow, we're heading down to route 30 for a look at another former A&P not too far away here on Grocery Archaeology!