Groceteria.com

Several years ago, a former resident gave me a tip-off that a Marina-type Safeway store once existed in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

This was unexpected. Safeway didn't enter the GTA until the post-Marina era, and a Sault store would have had to have been supplied from Winnipeg if it had opened in advance of that: Talk about logistic difficulties! He also didn't give an address, and told me that he thought the building had been demolished.

But I was in the city today, and stumbled upon a slightly-expanded supermarket-like building with a rear roofline that was a bit interesting: This is at 475 Pim Street.

From 1990 to 2000, the Sault city directories list this address as a Golden Mile Loeb IGA store. Vernon directories of the 1970s and 1980s don't have classified listings, so I wasn't able to untangle the earlier history of the location. But this news article on the property calls it "the old Safeway/Loeb grocery store."

Thoughts?

Look what I found in the 1984 city directory. I''ll dig in more when I have more time but I can date it back at least as far as 1972.

There’s some real estate listings for the property up right now showing the aerial view and it is most definitely a Marina under there. In a Facebook group about growing up in Sault Ste. Marie there are a few posts that mention it. From the comments it was a Marina store, opened in the 60’s and became a Loeb IGA in the mid 80s.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! This is great, and it's getting better and better.

In another Facebook post, I found a picture of this actual store, lurking behind a pair of gas stations. It featured a full Marina facade with upturned wings, and a wonderful googie parking-lot sign. Several 1963/64-era stores in Winnipeg had identical signs...so perhaps the Sault Ste. Marie Safeway opened then?

It's exciting to discover a new Marina, and this Marina is the easternmost and southernmost one in Canada known to exist.

Awesome find! No doubt about it then. I did not know they had a Canadian store of that style that far south. From the looks of it Safeway sold it off around the same time as Oshawa bought the GTA stores.