TOUR: Main Street Market - Bangor, PA

Main Street Market
Owner: Duane and Nichole Smith

Opened: 1995-2022, sold in 2019

Cooperative: none
Location: 90 N Main St, Bangor, PA

Photographed: December 22, 2018

Today's store has a bit of an interesting history. As you might be able to guess from the facade in the first picture, it was built as an A&P, probably in the 1950s. In the 1970s, it became a Thriftway, then Main Street Market in 1995. I visited in late 2018 and the following year, the store was briefly closed and then sold. After some light renovation, it was reopened only to close again in 2022.

The 13,000 square foot store has a great classic supermarket feeling, or I suppose it had that feeling since it no longer exists -- and as far as I know, the space is currently vacant. You enter on the right side of the storefront, seen here facing the parking lot, and walk across in front of the registers to the left side where produce and meat line the wall. Deli is on the back wall, with frozen partially in aisle 2 and partially in the last aisle with dairy.

Sharp eyes will pick up on the most interesting thing about this supermarket's interior... the A&P decor is still on the walls! See the lettering hiding on the wall there? Now, the walls have been painted, but originally it would've looked something like this. Notice the similarity in the flooring, too.

We'll see a mixture of old and new fixtures here, but some features are definitely quite old such as the wood paneling on the front wall.

Some of the flooring is hard to date because it's so generic, but I'm guessing the aisle markers are probably 1990s, not 1970s. If Thriftway was here by the 70s, A&P must have remodeled the place very shortly before closing it.

A look at the deli department on the back wall. As we can see, some of the fixtures had definitely been updated here. I'm wondering if what's now the salad and prepared foods case, in the front here, was previously a butcher or meat department. Updated fixtures in the second aisle, too, where frozen foods are...

When the store was sold, it seems as I said there was some light renovation, which appears to have involved painting the walls and putting up some new, very simple decor.

We can tell it's an old building, though, not least because of some obvious signs like the uneven flooring visible here. That's less wear and tear, and more old structural materials.

The store is small, and definitely feels small inside.

Here's a look at dairy in the last aisle, again with A&P lettering that's been painted.

How about that ice cream freezer? I don't know if I've ever seen one quite like that -- and it looks pretty new, too, although I would say it's probably a much older fixture that's been refurbished or painted. The last aisle also contains the bakery...

This store never had an in-store bakery, but this gold mirrored shelving has to be at least from the Thriftway days if not from A&P. Anyone familiar with this type of shelving in A&P stores?

And a quick look across the front end before we move along. Our next stop is in another small town around seven miles northeast, right here on The Independent Edition!