Groceteria.com

Any guesses on this one? I'm still going through odds and ends from my big road trip last fall.

It looks like 50s or early 60s--National and Jewel would be the likeliest guesses, because they had the most stores. A&P is unlikely. Hillman or Del Farm might be dark horse guesses. I don't think Eagle ever had stores in Chicago proper. Outside chance of being a Dominick's, but they stayed in the suburbs for many years, outside of former Kroger stores. That area would have drawn chains rather than independents in the 50s/60s.

It doesn't have have the ceramic tile that Jewel favored in the 50s or the buff colored brick favored by National, but this could be a Jewel w/o the ceramic, and with paint over the cheap under brick. National favored pylons (but not universally), but might have used the area on the far left to post their logo and then have N-A-T-I-O-N-A-L spelled out over the windows (the label scar for this could now be covered). Kroger during this period, often had "K-R-O-G-E-R" spelled over the windows on stores like this. OTOH, the brick doesn't look like what they typically used (usually red, buff or both, w/o anything fancy). There weren't many Krogers in the city, so I'd lean toward National.

Eagle did have stores in the Chicago area. unless you meant not within the city limits.

I'm wondering now if this could of been a Dominick's.


There's one up Milwaukee Ave at Devon and Nagle with was recently remodled and there's this sign inside the store saying '' Seving Chicago since 1950, probably referring to the imediate neighborhood since the chain has existed longer than that.

The neighborhood is Norwood Park and Some neighborhoods in Chicago have their own historical societies and I've visted the historical society and read something there saying the shopping center were the present day Dominick's is was built in the late 70s.

mikeparkridge wrote:There's one up Milwaukee Ave at Devon and Nagle with was recently remodled and there's this sign inside the store saying '' Seving Chicago since 1950, probably referring to the imediate neighborhood since the chain has existed longer than that.

I wouldn't put too much faith in that date. Those signs are a Safeway addition, and they're notoriously inaccurate even within Safeway's home turf, as has been discussed in a different thread.

Safeway had that fixture in a Reno Store (with the year 1928) and I was going to photograph it but noticed that the fixture is gone. Maybe I am confused but I am sure they had that fixture in there. Though I go to that store twice a week at least, I had not noticed it was gone until just recently. The store has not been remodeled or anything either.

Also, a Dominick's in Lincolnwood on Pratt and McCormick Blvd has a sign overhead saying something like "Serving Lincolnwood since 1970." Not in that exact location since the building is only a few years old. The older versian used to be located on the east side of Pratt (The Chicago River divides it) on the corner of Pratt and Kedzie and that's the one that has been serving the neighborhood for that long although techically that isn't Lincolnwood. It is on the border.

Maybe this is Safeway's way of saying "Here we gave you some vintage memories, so forget about the fact that we ran your local chain into the ground and jacked up the prices."

Groceteria wrote:Any guesses on this one? I'm still going through odds and ends from my big road trip last fall.

This was a Jewel similar to the one on Oakton St in another thread. It was a "Guitar Center" until maybe five years ago, then was stripped bare revealing its orange stripe before its transformation to the building you see in the picture.

Found the attached article and at the end of the page, there are about a half dozen Jewel pictures of ones that were built in the 30's and 40's buy Jewel and the Milwaukee Ave. location is included in there.

http://johndcramer.wordpress.com/catego ... tegorized/

Also, in the 80's and early 90's, this was a Guitar Center, bought my one and only guitar there.

LadyNoir wrote:Also, a Dominick's in Lincolnwood on Pratt and McCormick Blvd has a sign overhead saying something like "Serving Lincolnwood since 1970." Not in that exact location since the building is only a few years old. The older versian used to be located on the east side of Pratt (The Chicago River divides it) on the corner of Pratt and Kedzie and that's the one that has been serving the neighborhood for that long although techically that isn't Lincolnwood. It is on the border.

Maybe this is Safeway's way of saying "Here we gave you some vintage memories, so forget about the fact that we ran your local chain into the ground and jacked up the prices."

The Lincolnwood store they are referring to was located just north of Touhy at Cicero/Skokie Blvd. It's Grossinger Toyota North now.