TOUR: Boyer's Food Markets - Lansford, PA

Boyer's Food Markets

Owner: Dean Walker

Opened: 2001

Previous Tenants: ACME Markets (1950s-1990s) > Insalaco's (1990s-1998) > TJ Bart's (1998-2001)

Location: 500 W Bertsch St, Lansford, PA

Photographed: November 29, 2019

Welcome to what I believe is the unofficial official supermarket of the Coal Region, Boyer's Food Markets! They have around 20 locations in and around the Coal Region and are, in many cases, the only supermarket in town for many of the small communities they're in.

The 15,000 square foot store was built in the 1950s as an ACME, although it doesn't exactly resemble any known ACME prototypes, being built around a 9600 square foot barrel-roof building. Note that the sign frame now displaying the Boyer's logo originally had the ACME logo, then Insalaco's, then TJ Bart's, then Boyer's Great Valu. The chain broke away from the Great Valu cooperative around 2005, going completely independent then. Today, the store is supplied by UNFI and uses Essential Everyday and Wild Harvest products.

There's a lot left over from ACME, even all these tenants later (although I see some work has been done on the outside since I was there, so they may have remodeled the interior a bit). Note the "magic carpets" still around the entrance and exit, especially the obvious outline of where the entrance one was.

The layout is likely left completely from ACME, too, in which you walk across the front of the store with soda on the front wall in front of the registers to produce on the right side and meat/deli on the back wall, with dairy/frozen on the left side. Notice anything else left from ACME?

Yes, probably all or most of the fixtures, but especially the flooring! It's the flooring that would have gone with the checkerboard arch decor. Boyer's has done some cosmetic renovations but the rest is mostly original from ACME. Of course, Boyer's has been doing a lot of remodeling, so they may have changed this all since I was there.

Here's a look at the front wall where you turn left to enter the produce department.

The store is quite small and a bit cramped, but in really good shape. Produce and baked goods are here in the first aisle. I'm willing to be the produce cases are left over from ACME.

Deli-bakery are in the back of the first aisle. It looks like this area might have been redone more than the rest of the store has.

Opposite the deli is a little salad bar and the meat department. I wonder if the salad bar is original to ACME, although many of the Boyer's have salad bars.

The shelving in the grocery aisles may be left from ACME, but there's not much else that is.

As you can see, though, Boyer's packs a lot in this small space.

These meat cases, too, may be left over from ACME...

...and these freezer and dairy cases almost definitely are.

It's a bit strange that this store likely would've gotten a pretty extensive overhaul by ACME right before it closed. Wouldn't it have been well-known internally that the northeastern PA division would be turned over to Penn Traffic shortly? Was the renovation intended to make what is obviously a smaller and older store more attractive to a buyer?

The registers may or may not have been left over from ACME, although they were refurbished a bit if so. But this is only the first of many Boyer's we're going to see in this area (including one in just two more days), so check back again soon! Meanwhile, next week we're going to start by checking out a former supermarket around three and a half miles west of here. Come back to Grocery Archaeology on Monday to check it out!