TOUR: BG's Value Market - Pine Grove, PA

BG's Value Market
Owner: Dianne Koval

Opened: unknown

Cooperative: none
Location: 24 Pleasant Valley Rd, Pine Grove, PA

Photographed: November 29, 2019

In the little town of Pine Grove, BG's Value Market (which we most recently saw in Minersville) has made their home in a 12,500 square foot former pitched-roof ACME. It appears ACME closed in 1995 and shortly thereafter the store re-opened as a BG's. In fact, there's actually a picture of BG's having its grand opening here. BG's renovated the store later, but really only changed the outside. I'm not sure how much they did to the inside, since it doesn't exactly look like an ACME inside but also doesn't look like any work was done recently. And it's amazing how much they pack into the tiny store.

You enter in the front left with customer service on the left side wall. Produce lines the left side of the store, with meat, deli, and bakery on the back wall. There's a little alcove or two for various other departments, which may have been carved out of former backroom space.

Like the Minersville store, this one is fairly cluttered and fairly old, although also like Minersville, some fixtures have been updated more recently.

Notice the ShurFine aisle markers still proudly displayed! The ShurFine cooperative has been defunct for some time.

This was the first BG's I went to, and I liked it a lot. It's small but very complete, and had a massive selection of merchandise along with great meat and baked goods.

As we can see, the grocery aisles are absolutely packed with stock even though the store is small.

This is the smaller of two supermarkets in Pine Grove. More on that later.

Here's an alcove in the back for soda and some frozen foods. Notice the much newer frozen cases.

And on the back wall, we have a little corner for deli and bakery behind the meat department...

As I said, this was likely carved out of former backroom space. It's possible this store has a basement for storage and prep.

The deli, and the wall of baked goods from which I chose quite a few delicacies.

Opposite this is a few more grocery aisles. As you can see, they pack in as much as they can in this small space. The third BG's I've been to (there are four total) was not nearly as cramped or packed with merchandise.

Lots of nonfoods here, too. Quite a large selection of stuff overall.

And speaking of newer fixtures, the milk cases are clearly much newer than the rest of the store.

Frozen foods are in the last and second-to-last aisles.

Again, we see some updated and some not. The maintenance here overall has been excellent, though. Notice that at some point -- likely when the exterior was redone -- the ceiling was flattened, as we can clearly see that the store originally kept ACME's exposed pitched roof. We can also notice in that 1995 photo the frame for the famous ACME sign, then replaced with windows.

And here's a look at the front-end before we head out.

This BG's is a very pleasant small-town grocery store! But Pine Grove, with just 2000 people, actually has two full supermarkets. The other one is about a mile northwest. Come back tomorrow to check it out!