Could this Acme (Mantua, NJ) have been planned as a Safeway

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Ephrata1966
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Could this Acme (Mantua, NJ) have been planned as a Safeway

Post by Ephrata1966 »

This store: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_246OMBI86f8/T ... tua_01.jpg

Because it doesn't look quite like any other Acme, and reminds me of this Safeway design: http://www.flickr.com/photos/16441604@N07/4120633523/

Safeway had stores in rural Pennsylvania in the 1970s, and I know had at least some New Jersey stores as of the early 1960s...

And a number of Safeways with this look (but not the one pictured) were paired with Kmart, just like this Acme, and this was an early 1970s design. The traditional Philadelphia grocers were already starting to die at that time...
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Re: Could this Acme (Mantua, NJ) have been planned as a Safe

Post by Groceteria »

The design of this store is more a function of the attached Kmart. Their paired stores of this era looked pretty much identical nationwide. The Safeway design you included is actually much different from this store design and predates it by several years. I think that Safeway prototype was largely limited to Southern and Central California.
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Re: Could this Acme (Mantua, NJ) have been planned as a Safe

Post by Groceteria »

Similar Kmart/Acme from Berlin NJ:
100_2081.jpg
Another from Havelock NC that probably would have been a Big Star:
IMG_0629.jpg
These MAY have opened as Kmart Foods locations.
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Re: Could this Acme (Mantua, NJ) have been planned as a Safe

Post by maynesG »

Hi, In my Acme travels I have put in some time in the Mantua Acme. I can attest that it was planed as an Acme and has always been and Acme. The color scheme wasn!t like that. It had the red Oval and the traditional Acme color scheme.
The Safeway in the photo was built by that company in Closter NJ on Piermont and Closter Dock Road ( My Dad managed it twice and I worked as a Produce Manager many moons ago). The same building also still exists in Seaford Delaware and is still open as a Safeway in Easton Md. Gerry
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Re: Could this Acme (Mantua, NJ) have been planned as a Safe

Post by Groceteria »

Interesting. I stand corrected about the Safeway prototype being limited to the West Coast.
Ephrata1966
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Re: Could this Acme (Mantua, NJ) have been planned as a Safe

Post by Ephrata1966 »

I checked a property tax assessment database, and it implied that a certain Safeway like this that was later AppleTree and has been abandoned since AppleTree closed in 1993 (in Houston of course) was built in May 1983. Could that have been a mistake? Perhaps they meant 1973?
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Re: Could this Acme (Mantua, NJ) have been planned as a Safe

Post by pseudo3d »

I don't know, the concrete ridges and facade of that ACME definitely looks like it was done in conjunction with a Kmart...which is why the ACME looks unique.

As for the Houston Safeway, I think you're right, it was built in 1973. I read somewhere that the first Safeway in Houston was on Telephone Road, became a Fiesta, and had that design, and that was in '70.
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