TOUR: Weavers Way Co-Op - Mount Airy, Philadelphia, PA

Weavers Way Co-Op

Owner: cooperatively owned

Opened: 1973

Cooperative: none
Location: 559 Carpenter Ln, Mount Airy, Philadelphia, PA

Photographed: July 2021

Our first stop of two here in Mount Airy is absolutely unique! The Weavers Way Co-Op is a longtime Philadelphia natural foods coop store, and this is the original location. Well, kind of -- it was originally at 555 Carpenter Lane, and what we're looking at is 557-559. The store has moved a few times within a few neighboring buildings, but I won't explain the full history in this post. Weavers Way has on its own website an informative -- and entertaining -- history of the cooperative grocery store.

Now that you've read all about Weavers Way, it's time to see our first Weavers Way store. It's a little hard to pin down the exact size of the store, but I'd estimate it's around 3000 square feet. That space is divided in many ways, though. There are basically three rooms, if I remember correctly (and it's tough, let me tell you). We enter on the corner of Carpenter Lane and Greene Street, which brings us into room #1. That's cheese, deli/bakery, and the registers. From there we can go farther into the building for room #2, which has frozen, dairy, grocery, meat, and produce. And then from room #1, we can go upstairs into room #3, which has bulk foods and some more grocery on the second floor (but only above room #1, not above room #2). There are two doorways from #1 to #2 -- one at the front and one in the middle.

Our first stop on the tour is the cheese department and the deli, which are opposite each other. There are also baked goods in this area, but I don't believe they bake on-site.

In the above picture, you can see to the back of room #1, where the registers are. The stairs to the second floor are also on the left above.

And now we move into room #2. As you can see, this is not exactly a large store. But I was impressed with how much was packed into this tiny space.

Frozen foods and produce are on the far right side of the store.

Beautiful produce department, too. Lots of very nice local produce.

Looking back up towards the front of the store -- that is, Carpenter Lane. I suppose the way it's set up Greene Street is really on the front, since that's where the entrances and exits are, and that's where the registers are.

No space is wasted! The shelf that's left empty is left empty intentionally, it seems.

And here's the rear door from room #2 back into #1. As we can see, the dairy department continues onto the back wall of room #1.

One more shot from the grocery aisles of room #2. Now back to the registers...

As we see, the store's small size dictates the layout of the checkouts, which are lined up on one counter rather than in the standard supermarket style checkouts.

Heading upstairs, we see bulk foods and some other health-related items. There's no HABA here, though, since that's sold in Weavers Way Across the Way, a separate HABA-only store diagonally across Carpenter and Greene.

Quite the bulk foods department packed into this tiny store.

There were some unusual bulk items too, such as flour, seen here on the left. Now to head back downstairs...

And actually, we get a very nice overview of the whole room (#1, that is) from the staircase. This was a very fortunate picture location!

And that wraps up our look at the Mount Airy Weavers Way. But don't worry, I've photographed the other two also! We'll be checking out Chestnut Hill in just a few days, but first, we're going to see a brand-new discount supermarket just over half a mile east right here in Mount Airy. Head over to The Market Report to check it out!