Where did you grocery shop as a kid! 🚨DO NOT RESPOND IF IT IS A SECURITY QUESTION ANSWER 🚨

[Floyd R. Turbo]

[flor-de-jasmim]

1. The A & P - getting green stamps!

[Floyd R. Turbo]

2. Yep! Had one across my street!

[Pobeka]

3. Me too -- hadn't thought of the A&P for a long, long time! n/t

[hlthe2b]

7. I remember my Mom did that.

at the time it was an inspired way to get folks to show store/brand loyalty.

[LakeArenal]

17. Yep

Went to a redemption center a couple times too.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

4. Do you mean, where did my mom take me? I didn't shop for groceries really as a child (nt)

[Floyd R. Turbo]

5. Yes!

[Kaleva]

21. My grandfather would have my aunts, when they were little, walk over mile to the local store to shop

[pdxflyboy]

6. The A & P, Westport Avenue, Norwalk, CT

We got Plaid Stamps from there.

[leftieNanner]

8. Safeway in West Portal

When Safeway was a pretty new chain. The store was small - maybe 4 aisles, and it had a butcher named Mr. Johnson. He would cut a thick slice of bologna for me to munch on while sitting in the grocery cart as Mom shopped.

For late night, Sunday, and holiday needs, we had Eezy Freezy - a family owned small grocery about two blocks away where you would go on Thanksgiving when you forgot an ingredient.

Oh yes. And S&H Green Stamps!

[Hugh_Lebowski]

12. Been to the one at Cabrillo and La Playa many times, but not your store :) nt

[doc03]

9. We had the general mercantile then came the A&P

then Hart's (Big Bear) they had everything.

[quaint]

10. Market Basket

[denbot]

43. Jr High, High School Market Basket in Santa Fe Springs CA.

I believe there are still a few around.

[quaint]

44. Whittier for me.

Had lots of friends in Santa Fe Springs. City sure has changed.

[denbot]

45. Haven't spent much time there in 40 years.

It was still oilfields starting at the end of my street, and we could ride our motorcycles down the San Gabriel river, up over Rose Hills, and from there could ride the hills to Brea and beyond..

[exboyfil]

11. Ralphs in Garden Grove, CA

In the early and mid 1970s.

[underpants]

13. Safeway, Winn Dixie, Big Star

Big star was the only one open on Sunday’s due to Blue Laws.

[sop]

14. Publix and Winn Dixie, in South Florida

[Cracklin Charlie]

15. Piggly Wiggly.

You could buy salt licks for cows there.

[yellowdogintexas]

42. my grandfather sold those. They were in the "farm supply" shed next to the store

They were different colors too. I never knew why but some of them were brown and some of them were red. Also bamboo rods for fishing and assorted other oddities.

The basement was WOnderland!!!! It was dark and creepy with all sorts of strange stuff down there (plus it was a great place to get out of the heat). That was where my dad aged his cheddar cheese! He would get a wheel of cheese every year from the local creamery and put it down there. When it was 3 years old he would bring it out to sell. We got our piece first then it was every man for himself - usually it was all gone in 2 or 3 days.

That stuff made a mighty fine Welsh Rarebit.

[Kali]

49. the colors are for trace minerals

white is plain salt, red is iron in the generic trace mineral block (or loose) and there are assorted others that have chromium, or selenium or whatever is deficient in the local soils.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

16. Safeway or Lucky's. Had a few Raley's, Fry's, and Alpha Beta around, but never really shopped there

Stores I remember from the 1970's:

Safeway in Quincy, CA
Orinda Safeway
Lafayette Lucky's
Lucky's on ... I think it was Grand Ave ... in Oakland
Walnut Creek Safeway, but it wasn't where the current one is downtown at Mt Diablo and Broadway.

Oh, also Black's Market in Orinda, went there sometimes as well.

[zeusdogmom]

18. Red Owl

Or the little general store in the small unincorporated area a couple miles from the farm. Kind of like the general store in the Walton’s tv program. It was a cool place plus the bookmobile stopped there every 2 weeks. The best!!!

[Ohio Joe]

19. Grand Union in NE NJ...

Sometimes A&P... We had one of each in town but Grand Union had better selection.

[Chipper Chat]

20. A&P.

Or the local mom n pop grocery. There was one on every block (1949)

[Kaleva]

23. 2 local Co-ops established over a 100 years ago.

Almost every small town had one years ago but I know of only 1 left.

[Freddie]

24. Mom always went to the A & P

I have very fond memories of going there with her when I was very little and my brother was in school. To this day I don’t mind grocery shopping and will go in person as long as I can. Now I take my 3 year old granddaughter with me and hope she will have nice memories too.

[Dave in VA]

25. Colonial Stores

Giant Open Air Market, BeLo Stores.

[IcyPeas]

26. Waldbaum's or Food Fair

[Nittersing]

27. Acme!

Our little town also had a local co-op, but Acme was closer.

My little kid brain never quite made the connection to the cartoon Acme.

[EYESORE 9001]

28. There were three independent grocers in my tiny town

all located on the same block in the ‘business district.’

[rickyhall]

30. Buddies and Safeway

I also worked for Buddies just out of high school.

[Fla Dem]

31. A & P (Atlantic & Pacific) and Finast (First National Stores.

My Dad usually did the shopping Saturday morning while Mom stayed home to watch over the 4 kids. Later when we were trusted to be left on our own, she would go with him. It wasn't until I could drive that I really went to a grocery store.

[bucolic_frolic]

32. A&P and ShopRite

A&P had dark wooden floors, wooden checkout counters, high tin ceilings. It was about the size of a Dollar Tree today. Butcher section was about 2 glass counters, 8 feet wide, beef hanging behind, dark. Butcher paper wrapped - pink or yellow tint.

Then Shop Rite came along. They grabbed I think it was a former Carvel that was later a used car lot. High, high, glass fronts. Few parking places.

[NNadir]

33. A&P. My dad worked for them.

His pension, however, after over 30 years disappeared with Jimmy Hoffa's body.

[mnhtnbb]

34. A&P and Acme

in New Jersey, from 1954-1965.

[Totally Tunsie]

35. I didn't grocery shop as a kid, but my mother shopped

at Grand Union in Greenwich, CT.

[MOMFUDSKI]

36. A&P

and, boy, did I LOVE LOVE LOVE the smell of the coffee being ground in the machines they provided. Also they had a wooden L-Shaped Bar that they would, by hand, use to pull your groceries toward them. I was early grade school in '52, '53 and thought I wanted to be a grocery checker because of the wooden pull thingy.

[marie999]

37. Stop & Shop and A & P

They would have merged but no one would shop at the Stop & P. Every time our father said it we would giggle.

[MOMFUDSKI]

38. Good One

I also like UPS and FEDEX are merging and calling it FED UP.

[csziggy]

39. The first I really remember is Publix

But I sort of remember when they opened the Publix in our town. We lived less than twenty miles from where the chain began and it was a big deal in our little town to get a supermarket about 1959 or so.

Previously there were two small grocery stores in town that I vaguely remember. One was fairly close to where our house was, the other was downtown. I'm not sure where Mom shopped before Publix opened.

Much later an A&P opened but Mom didn't like it much because it was always sort of dirty. Then a Winn Dixie opened across the highway from the Publix and she shopped at both depending on who had the better deals.

[rogerballard]

40. Farmer Jack

A & P and I think I remember Wrigley's? Also Food Town, that may have been a Michigan thing.

[yellowdogintexas]

41. most essentials: the Breakfield Store in my tiny town in KY. (my family owned and ran it)

Houchens (a local grocery chain in KY)
Hills (another local grocery chain in Middle Tennessee)

If we went big time to the nearest town of any consequence it was Kroger

Living in the country pre WalMart was fun

[malthaussen]

46. There was a supermarket right on the corner of the main drag...

... it was not owned by one of the big chains, but a "family owned" business with two stores. It was the size of a normal supermarket, like an A&P that was farther down the street. Everybody on our street used to shop there, or if we happened to be the kids on the street, snuck into the coolers and stole ice cream (we were a right bunch of thugs).

Generally, our family got food at whatever supermarket was closest, so after we moved from that location, we went to a variety of stores as we shifted around.

-- Mal

[rownesheck]

47. In our town

the first place I remember was called Weingarten's. It then became Safeway. Then we started shopping at a place called Hughes'. Then we moved to another small town and shopped at a place called Price-Lo. Then we moved to a larger town and started shopping at Albertson's.

[beaglelover]

48. Foodtown

[ProfessorGAC]

50. Rudy's

Local supermarket with 3 stores. One east of the river, one just over the west side & another farther west on a bordering town.
I honestly don't recall going with my mom anywhere else.
They closed down when the kids didn't want to run the business, so my parents switched, but by then in was in junior high and didn't go shopping with mom anymore. Much bigger Chicago area chains moved in, so they probably shopped there.
In fact, I probably stayed home with my 11 year younger sister so mom could shop without having to take her.
By the time I had a drivers' license, I was going to Jewell, which is now a division of Albertson's.

[3catwoman3]

51. Wegman's in upstate NY.

I wish they would come out to the greater Chicago area.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

52. The commissary on the base.

Which base? Depends on which year.

[Rhiannon12866]

53. Grand Union - and if my mother went across town, Price Chopper