Moving from Cape Cod to north central Massachusetts, we have a look at the small town of Ayer, MA! Unlike the Dennisport picture, I can definitely pinpoint where this picture was taken -- the train tracks give it away! (Those train tracks are now a rail trail, that I've biked up. Beautiful!) Unfortunately, though, most of these buildings no longer exist.
And in case you missed it, take a look at that building on the left side of Main Street. That's the Union Cash Market! Now, Ayer doesn't have its Union Cash Market anymore, but they do have a strange circular Shop 'n Save (well, technically the store is a tetradecagon, because it technically has 14 sides; had to do some Googling for that one). I hope you enjoyed this Back in Time feature, and I'll look for more opportunities to share old memorabilia, photos, and ads as I can!
That Shop and Save used to be a Hannaford. I think that it was previously some local chain that Hannaford acquired.
ReplyDeleteIt was originally Victory markets
DeleteMight be the first one I've heard of going that way.
DeleteYears ago, Hannaford used several names for their stores (including Shop 'n Save - that was the name used here in the Albany, NY area).
They decided to "unify" and get rid of all the names and simply use the corporate name Hannaford on their stores. However, they did continue to use Shop 'n Save for stores that they don't own, but instead are independently owned but supplied by Hannaford Brothers.
So, if this one actually had the Hannaford name, then changed to Shop 'n Save, they must have owned it and then decided to sell it off but still supply the new owners (thinking maybe it was too small for the corporation to run, but they bought it anyway as part of the chain - perhaps Victory Markets, as they bought that chain in 2004? - then decided not to continue running it, but were still willing to do the wholesale side). Guess that chain of events would make sense if they were buying a chain, to take them all over first, then evaluate to see which to keep and which to close, or in this case offer to someone else.
Thanks for the history! Yes, Victory was acquired by Hannaford but I didn't realize that this was a Victory location.
Deletehttps://www.telegram.com/story/news/2004/11/30/victory-purchase-completed/53181066007/
Looks like this place was Victory until 2004, then Hannaford, which switched to an independent Shop n Save between 2008 and 2016.
I was only aware of the Victory locations in the Fitchburg area, which of course isn't that far from here, but I didn't know they came out here.