TOUR: Gerrity's ShurSave - South Main, Scranton, PA

Gerrity's ShurSave

Owner: Joyce Fasula

Opened: 1980 - 2022

Previous Tenants: Giant Market (1951 - after 1967) > Short Stop Food Market (late 1970s - 1980)

Later Tenants: Gerrity's The Fresh Grocer (2022- )

Cooperative: ShurSave

Location: 702 S Main Ave, Scranton, PA

Photographed: August 12, 2020

Welcome to the original Gerrity's Supermarket! At 25,000 square feet, this is also the smallest, having been built in 1951 as a Giant Market. The store closed at some point after 1967, later becoming the Short Stop Food Market by the late 1970s and closing in 1980. Gerrity's, previously a butcher shop, moved in and opened their first supermarket here in 1980. (Incidentally, this was also the first store to be converted to The Fresh Grocer when Gerrity's joined Wakefern in 2022.)

We enter to bakery and produce in the front right corner with meat and dairy in the first aisle (I commented on the meat being up front on our last Gerrity's, which was also a Giant Market). Deli and prepared foods are on the back wall, with frozen foods on the outside of the last aisle. This store has only 8 aisles in total.

Here's a look at the bakery and entrance area, with greeting cards between the bakery and the front-end.

Despite the small size, I do think there's an in-store bakery here, albeit a small one. The produce department is extremely small compared to the other locations and other supermarkets.

Scranton has relatively few supermarkets, especially in the city neighborhoods, other than quite a few Gerrity's. This store's nearest competitor is a Price Rite about a third of a mile east, which is very close.

And notice too that we have a new family member -- Neal! Aunt Mary is again in the kitchen...

I really like the flooring here, and I think despite the store being small and old, much more so than their other locations, it looks really good. I think also it's well-used by the neighborhood.

There's even a small soup and salad bar in the corner, although it had been reduced when I visited for the coronavirus.

Pretty standard grocery aisles, with deli on the back wall. I like the brick and the wood floor here, too. I really like the look of this deli overall.

And frozen foods are on the outside of the last aisle.

It's a small store and that's about it! Here's the front-end.

I think the store has been expanded in almost all directions since it opened, so I really don't know what any previous tenants' layouts would've been like. I have to imagine Short Stop, being an independent and also not in business for that long, didn't renovate the store extensively if at all.

We don't have that many stores left to see in Scranton, although we'll be spending some time in the suburbs to the north of the city. On Monday, though, we'll be seeing a cool independent food store in West Scranton on The Independent Edition!