TOUR: CTown Supermarkets - Southside, Reading, PA

Jimmie's CTown Supermarkets
Owner: Isidoro Diaz

Opened: 2008 under current ownership; 1965 previously

Previous Tenants: Jimmie's Supermarket

Cooperative: Krasdale Foods

Location: 264 S 9th St, Reading, PA

Photographed: August 20, 2019

It's our first of two CTown Supermarkets here in Reading! We saw DeCarlo's Bravo yesterday, which became a Bravo pretty recently but was DeCarlo's Meat Market since at least 1931. It's a similar situation here, with Jimmie's Supermarket being here since at least 1965 and as far as I can tell, becoming CTown in 2008.

The layout of the 7500 square foot store is pretty straightforward, with produce in the front right corner, grocery in the first aisle, meat on the back wall, and frozen/dairy in the last aisle. We see some classic decor on the walls, but not any decor I recognize from a big chain supermarket. Plus, it's not older than 1965... so it was likely installed by Jimmie's.

Some fixtures (like the refrigerator cases) may have been updated fairly recently, but to be honest this store was one of the more rundown stores I've seen in this part of PA. It really wasn't in very good condition and the other CTown, as we'll see, was nicer even though it's not all that much newer.

Something interesting to note here is that we have Krasdale and Best Yet products side by side.

The store is plenty clean, but in pretty rough shape overall. As we see here, the fixtures are all very old and the flooring, although clean and shiny, is very old too. We see a lot of lights burnt out around the store.

Another thing I notice (which I believe I remember about this store) is that there was no music playing. I find stores without music or any form of radio to be particularly depressing.

Some more decor, which I would estimate is probably 80s or so.

The aisle markers, though, don't entirely seem to match although I'm not sure. While it's clear these aren't CTown aisle markers, I'm not sure they're from Jimmie's either. It looks like someone somewhere along the line brought in secondhand aisle markers from "...Plus IGA":

Again, things like the handwritten signs over the aisle markers logos and the fact that some of the papers were falling off does not make the store look clean and professional. You can also see that there were almost no other customers in the store, and basically no employees either. There was one cashier and one supervisor hanging out in the front, and I believe two other customers in the store at the time.

Here in the last aisle we have some very old frozen and dairy cases, and you can get a real sense of how old and rundown the store truly feels here. I think some of these pictures make it look better than it was. Also notice the Tropical Dairy sign over the IGA logo here.

And that is all for this CTown. As I said, we have a second one in town tomorrow, which is also an older store but has been kept up much better over the years. Come back tomorrow to check it out!