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Sidney, Montana-Safeway store-Marina style-opened Oct. 1963

Posted: 12 Oct 2021 01:50
by Jason B.
Sidney, Montana is a town on the Yellowstone River near the North Dakota border. Apparently that region is known as "Mon-Dak" due to its proximity to the Montana-North Dakota state line.

A Marina-style Safeway store opened in Sidney on October 14, 1963. It was located at 2nd Avenue and 2nd Street NW. I have no idea if the building still stands today. There appears in Google Street View and Bing Maps to be a Reese & Ray's "IGA" store in that area, but it does not seem to have a "Marina-style" roof:
https://www.google.com/maps/@47.7168613 ... 312!8i6656
From aerial photos, there possibly is a Marina-style roof on the building. Maybe an addition was made to the front of the store that conceals the Marina-style roof when the building is viewed from near its front.

An article about the grand opening was in the October 9, 1963 edition of the "Sidney Herald" (not to be confused with the "Sydney Morning Herald" of Australia!). See:
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn ... d-1/seq-1/
The article says that the building had an area of 23,000 square feet (15,000 square feet in its sales area). The parking lot had 120 spaces (with mercury vapor lighting). Store hours were 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. (closed Sundays).

Grand opening advertisements appeared in the "Herald" on October 16, 1963. See the following pages:
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn ... -1/seq-10/
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn ... -1/seq-11/

The ad promotes a "Non Foods Department," "In Store Bakery," and a "Modern Snack Bar."

Re: Sidney, Montana-Safeway store-Marina style-opened Oct. 1963

Posted: 12 Oct 2021 08:26
by Andrew T.
Oh, that IGA definitely is a Marina-style building: You can make out the curvature of the roof and the placement of the side "wings" in the aerial imagery. The interior pictures on Google also reveal that the curved roofline and ceiling beams are preserved on the inside!

Outside is another matter, though. The building's been given a false front and a false rear (plus a stucco job and massive side annex to boot), so the Safeway lineage is completely obscured from the ground.

Re: Sidney, Montana-Safeway store-Marina style-opened Oct. 1963

Posted: 29 Oct 2021 17:41
by explorersea
Jason, what a great find, somewhere in my files I have an old picture of all the Montana stores including pictures of the store managers. For 1963 the Snack Bars were still progressive for the times so to see Sidney received one with their store is interesting for a small town.

Re: Sidney, Montana-Safeway store-Marina style-opened Oct. 1963

Posted: 30 Oct 2021 10:25
by Steve Landry
Fredericks had snack bars in their stores in S. Florida in the late 50s.

The chain was purchased by Food Fair Inc soon after.

I managed a store in the NW section of Miami that still had one.

:-)