675 Kidder St, Wilkes-Barre, PA

Original Grocery Tenant: Big V ShopRite

Address: 675 Kidder St, Wilkes-Barre, PA

Opened: 1990s

Closed: 2001

Later Tenants: vacant, half now Ollie's Bargain Outlet
Photographed: December 22, 2018

I mentioned on one of our recent Gerrity's posts that Wakefern used to have a presence in the Wyoming Valley, actually as early as 1981 (not sure if they were here before that). I believe most of that presence was driven by member Big V, which also had a large presence in the Hudson Valley of New York. For a quick recap, they attempted to leave Wakefern around 2000, trying to simultaneously convince Wakefern they were going off on their own to avoid paying the penalty to leave while also having very public negotiations with Stop & Shop to sell the chain to them. Wakefern rejected their argument, required they pay the penalty to leave the coop, and that bankrupted Big V. Wakefern bought back most of Big V's assets (one store went to Stop & Shop), but some stores just closed. And Big V went under in 2001.

Big V opened this store in the 1990s and at a whopping 80,000 square feet, this store may have simply been too big (and too far-flung) for Wakefern to want it back in 2001.

Of course, plenty of ShopRites are over 80,000 square feet, but it must have been an expensive store to run in a market they had nearly zero presence in otherwise, and that combined with the fact that the store is not particularly visible from the street must have been a couple too many strikes against this store for Wakefern.

Half of the ShopRite is now an Ollie's Bargain Outlet, but the other half has remained vacant for all these years and ShopRite's pharmacy sign is even still up!

You can see the outline of the circular ShopRite logo.

Some other ShopRite signage is still visible around the store, too...

Unfortunately, though, we can't so much see inside because the store is set up with a large foyer beyond which we really can't see.

If we brighten up the picture a little, we can see inside just a little better. I believe the front-end would've run along the right side of the store but I'm not sure. I believe there was a garden center outside the supermarket on the right side.

That doorway below is what I believe would bring us into the main supermarket, which I believe would've started with a grand aisle along the front wall here.

Here's a look at the side entrance. The store is set up to kind of face away from the rest of the strip mall it's in, which is a little strange. So the entrances are on the corner.

Below is where I believe the store had a garden center. As you can see, the store has deteriorated but not all that much in 22 years (I suppose only 17 when I visited). If I remember correctly, I looked in that second set of doors and the interior was complete darkness, so I didn't take any pictures. This was long before cell phone cameras had the fancy night-vision stuff they have now, so the phone wouldn't have helped at all either.

That's all for this ShopRite, and in addition to the Gerrity's Fresh Grocers around the Wyoming Valley (plus a few Price Rites), there is now one ShopRite in the Valley, in Moosic. We're way at the eastern part of Wilkes-Barre here, just about a mile northwest of where the development gives way to wilderness (and route 81 is built right along that border). So now we're going to head west back towards town, to check out an independent supermarket in the Parsons section of Wilkes-Barre on The Independent Edition!