Groceteria.com

The latest news from the annals of London supermarket research...

Remember Superior, the voluntary grocery chain whose affiliates ruled London from the 1940s to the 1960s? Just a couple posts upthread, I said...

Andrew T. wrote: ↑27 Jul 2019 11:03By the late 1960s Superior was in free-fall, and a decade later there was only a single store left: Gates Superior at 730 William St., which was hollowed out of the lower story of a house and scarcely qualified as a supermarket. By 1985 even this was gone.

As it turns out, Superior had more lasting power than I thought! A 1979 newspaper ad I found lists four Superior affiliates in London itself (none of which is Gates, oddly enough), and literally dozens of locations in the small towns that surround it:
Another interesting thing I discovered was that by 1979, Superior stores were supplied by Elliott Marr & Company...a division of the Oshawa Group. How long after 1979 Superior lasted, I don't know...but due to the Oshawa connection, it's likely that their stores were simply rebranded as EMA, Price Chopper, or Foodland instead of disappearing into the ether entirely. I wouldn't doubt that some are still operating as Foodland today.
OK, another interesting thing: Feast your eyes on the 1979-era Superior logo! And you thought Safeway had the only circle-S around. Maybe I should call this "the Circle-S from Hell"...

OK, I'll stop now.

Not much new to share on London. My efforts to trace the history of store locations were put on hold in 2019 when I moved out of the city.

However, I just caught wind that the Miracle Food Mart-cum-Food Basics store at 1297 Oxford Street E underwent a severe renovation in 2020, completely obliterating the hitherto well-preserved 1970s-mod Steinberg exterior/interior elements and changing the entrance configuration. Such a shame! David and I paid a visit to this store in 2018, and back then it was a blast from the past: