How Much "P" was a part of A&P

[jamcool]

I noticed the photos of A&P's California (Pacific) stores. How big was their West Coast operation? And what cities/areas did they operate (LA and Seattle?)

[TheStranger]

Storewanderer mentioned to me some areas in the Sacramento River Delta/far Bay Area, such as Antioch and Stockton, that had A&P stores up into the 1970s...not certain where those locations are though.

[runchadrun]

According to an ad from January, 1969, there were 22 stores in the Los Angeles Area. The stores listed are in Los Angeles County (16 stores), Orage County (3), San Bernardino County (2), and a lone store way out in Indio.

I would have to do some more research as to when A&P pulled out of the market, unless someone else knows.

[Groceteria]

The only A&P stores I know of on the west coast were in the SoCal and Seattle areas. A&P left SoCal in 1969 and Seattle several years later. There were also stores in Bakersfield through the late 1940s.

I'm not aware of any past presence in Northern California, particularly one that would have lasted as late as the 1970s.

[TheQuestioner]

I took another look at that map of Safeway and A&P's territories from the late 1950's. I was kind of surprised at how little overlap there was.

Even growing up in the late 1970's, I got the impression that A&P and Safeway were *the* national grocery chains, the GM and Ford of the supermarket world. It's interesting that this impression remained strong enough for me to pick up on, since by the late 70's A&P had already retracted quite a bit and Safeway was not nearly as nation-wide as it was (or now is again, through acquisitions) There really was no "national" supermarket, even back then. There certainly were a wider array of chains, though.

[marshd1000]

A&P in Washington State was pretty much located in Seattle, Tacoma and Bremerton (at least I think it was in Bremerton). Anyway, they were here until about 1974. Some if not all the Tacoma locations became Manlys supermarkets (if memory serves correctly, I was only 13 at the time). I don't know what happened to the Bremerton store. I do remember an announcement where Tradewell was supposed to buy the Seattle locations. I don't know what happened to that plan as I think only one or two were sold to Tradewell. One in West Seattle is now a Petco. Most Seattle A&P's were sold to QFC. That was their first wave of expansion. However not all A&P's became grocery stores in 1974. The Burien, WA location became a Value Village at some point. The one in White Center became a Pay 'n Pak home center and is now McClendon Hardware.

[Groceteria]

I took another look at that map of Safeway and A&P's territories from the late 1950's. I was kind of surprised at how little overlap there was.

A&P really never had a significant presence west of the Mississippi; there were two small west coast divisions and pretty much nothing between the Pacific coast and the midwest.

And Safeway probably has more of a nationwide presence now than it's ever really had before. At its peak in the 1950s, there were two small east coast divisions, and very little between the Atlantic coast and the lower midwest/Texas areas.

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, National Tea (and maybe even Food Fair) had almost as much geographic reach as Safeway and A&P, although it's harder to trace since these two operated under so many different brands, especially National.

[J-Man]

Has anyone ever come up with reasons why we seem to have many virtually nationwide drugstore chains (CVS, Walgreens, RiteAid) but no real national supermarket (at least under one name)?

[Groceteria]

Has anyone ever come up with reasons why we seem to have many virtually nationwide drugstore chains (CVS, Walgreens, RiteAid) but no real national supermarket (at least under one name)?

I speculated on this in another thread.

Most of the major chains add new regions through acquisition. Unlike department stores, there's no real benefit to a national identity for supermarket chains, since all adverstising pretty much has to be done on a local or regional basis anyway due to local market conditions.

The big chains seem to have determined that the benefits of a national identity don't outweigh the negatives of (1) the lost brand identity of longstanding local chains and (2) the physical cost of a name change. Note, for example, that in the 1999 merger, Albertsons only changed the name of Lucky stores (not Jewel or Acme) because Lucky operated in areas where Albertsons already had stores. Thus, there was some benefit to a name change in California, but not in Illinois or Pennsylvania, where Albertsons had no pre-exiting operation.

This trend seems to be pretty common (and has become more common in recent decades) among grocery retaillers.

Macy's or other department store chains, on the other hand, could reasonably be expected to do lots of national advertising, making a uniform indentity more of an issue. Federated obviously decided that protests and ill feelings toward the loss of names like Marshall Field or Kaufmann's were worth the price in order to consolidate their brands and simplify adverstising.

[tkaye]

A&P in Washington State was pretty much located in Seattle, Tacoma and Bremerton (at least I think it was in Bremerton). Anyway, they were here until about 1974. Some if not all the Tacoma locations became Manlys supermarkets (if memory serves correctly, I was only 13 at the time). I don't know what happened to the Bremerton store.

The Bremerton store was much older than the Tacoma stores -- it was built in 1944 -- and was closed by 1968. It was located at Ninth & Callow. At over 10,000 square feet, it was a pretty large store for the era in which it was built. A&P never replaced this store, even though it opened stores in Tacoma around the same time it left Bremerton. (A new marina Safeway had opened a block north and A&P's site left no room for a new, larger store.) After sitting vacant for awhile, Thurman Electric & Plumbing took over the site and operated there for about 20 years. A discount furniture store went in around 1993 and lasted for a few years. A furniture auction was there for a few years and a place that sells carpet remnants is the current tenant. Through it all, the building has been modified very little, with large picture windows looking out into the parking lot and side-facing entrances and exits. (I believe there was a sign tower on the rear of the building when it was an A&P that is no longer there, however.) I went inside a few times when it was an auction and it was very surreal to see wall-to-wall brown carpet on what otherwise was clearly built to be a supermarket.

As for the Tacoma stores, the one at S. 92nd & Pacific opened in 1965. It was in the Pacific Center development, along with a Wigwam store and Thrifty Rexall Drugs. The other store was built at Westgate North (N. 26th & Pearl) in 1967 and anchored the shopping center along with Sprouse-Reitz (whatever happened to them?!) You're right, both stores did go to Manley's Supermarkets in 1974 -- a family owned group of stores that had a long history in Tacoma.

After the changeover, the Pacific Avenue store didn't last much longer as a grocery. In 1976, it became a Warnaco clothing store. Through the '80s and early '90s it was a bingo hall. It's now owned by the Washington Church of God in Christ.

The Pearl Street store stayed with Manley's until they folded, becoming a Stock Market Foods in 1985. The building was significantly remodeled at this point. Like many of the Stock Market stores, it became a QFC in 1997. Safeway built a new store on the site in 2002 -- you could say that this site has gone full circle through the years, from an A&P to a Safeway!