Congratulations! The San Francisco Bay Area may have lost some lustre over the last 30 years as a place to live, but it's still a unique area with rich history and cultural relevance, and I'm thrilled to see Groceteria be "reunited" with the locale. I salute you for slogging through all those newspapers to get there!
On the Safeway front, I was curious to see if any evidence of the
chain's circa-1930 Canadian store design would surface here. Sadly, it did not. A few late-1920s and 1930s stores
did have a tinge of tile on the roof edge, though: 2979 MacArthur Blvd, 2436 Sacramento, 2005 San Pablo Ave, 1336 Gilman, 3617 International Blvd, and 5701 Foothill Blvd...which is
well worth a look for the windows alone.
1935 73rd Ave had ornate details. But nothing like the Canadian stores.
Some
1963 and 1968 lists of Oakland Safeway locations had came up a couple of years ago, and this feature fleshes out the known locations quite nicely. The updated chart
also shines a light on some short-lived Safeways that came and went between 1943 and 1967...and for that, I'm grateful. These include several stores built from the chain's 1940 prototype with striated pilasters:
6537 Foothill Blvd,
780 54th St, and
1536 23rd Ave.
Other than architecture, the other great take-away from the list is how chain grocery development in Oakland, Berkeley, Emeryville, and Alameda hit a brick wall after the 1960s. Only six new addresses appear in the 32-year span between 1967 and 1999! Was this due to community opposition, lack of development space, stagnant populations (I know Oakland basically plateaued from 1950 to 2000), or a little of all of the above?
