For more, don’t miss checking out vintage 1960s grocery stores, 1970s supermarkets and 80s grocery stores!
Carb-loading, ’50s style (1952)
Free baby sitters at D’Agostino’s grocery – shopping carts (1950)
This youthful New Yorker, Shawn Tully, 15 months, is completely relaxed about grocery shopping. And so, for that matter, is his mother, Mrs Edward Tully. Their favorite grocery store — D’Agostino Brothers, on Manhattan’s East 85th Street — knows how to make it easy and pleasant for both of them.
How self-service meats in cellophane make shopping quicker, easier (1950)
Vintage green stamps from the store (1956)
Join the 20 million smart, thrifty women who shop where they receive S&H Green Stamps. Over 60,000 stores of all types give them! Actually, 4 out of 5 women who save stamps save S&H Green Stamps.
1950s grocery store – the produce section
Vintage ’50s shopping carts at Colonial Stores
Space beneath manager’s office by front entrance serves as storage for shopping carts. Note customer telephone and writing desk at left. Store directory (inset) on each cart gives exact location of merchandise.
Nickels and dimes at the Kroger store (1957)
From back when it was a new thing to have cash registers that calculated the correct change
“Kresge’s new registers figure your change!” (1956)
“Land sakes, this IS a nicer way to buy lettuce” (1953)
The ‘supermarket’ is the latest in modern convenience (1959)
Lubbock Morning Avalanche (Texas) February 12, 1959
This new supermarket brings to Lubbock the ultimate in shopping convenience. There is simply no more modern — nor more complete — grocery market to be found anywhere.
New Piggly-Wiggly Supermarket Covers 27,000 square feet
The building covers nearly 27,000 square feet of floor space, running about 2,000 feet larger than when it was originally planned on the drawing board.
Here’s how some of that space is utilized: There are 180 lineal feet of frozen foods — and these counters are in a soft pastel blue, easy and restful on the eyes. Another 121 linear feet make up the market display, which includes tile fresh meats and cheese.
A new note has been introduced here with the use of tan leather-trimmed cases — quite a change from the unbroken stark white to which we’ve become accustomed.
Special delicatessen department
Forty-eight feet have been set aside for frozen fish, in addition to which the special delicatessen department will have a fresh fish section with supplies coming in daily by air and by express from the East Coast, Houston and Galveston.
In the delicatessen, you can find all kinds of salads and prepared foods, including barbecued fryers. You’ll want to take special notice of the outstanding produce department covering 60 feet of wall space as well as substantial aisle displays.
Regular cosmetic counter
Then, 51 feet of space will contain drugs, on top of which there’ll be a regular cosmetic counter, where milady can purchase lipsticks, colognes, perfumes, etc.
Wandering still further around the store, the observer will see a nice gourmet section offering fancy foods, a complete dietetic section… a garden supply section, and 66 feet of housewares, too.
“Extra services” available
Store officials point out with justifiable pride to such “extra services” as being able to prepare 10 baked hams at a time, which is in effect, offering a catering service.
If you’re having a large party or a church dinner, and would call ahead in the morning, these could be ready for you in the afternoon, thanks to a special large oven installed at this supermarket.
We are told that a dinner for as many as 500 to 600 people, complete with salads, could be prepared on 5 or 6 hours’ notice. Or — if one wanted barbecued fryers or chickens — they could prepare enough to serve up to 4,000 people if necessary!
Ten check-out stations
The old-fashioned forerunner of this market (the general store) may have carried a little of everything available for sale in its day — but it’s certain that it never approximated the service of its modern-day counterpart!
Ten motorized check-out stations will provide faster-than-ever service. A continuous belt moves the groceries out of the way of the checker, down to the sackers who take them to the car.
Room for kiddies
The long-suffering shopper is really in for her day with the opening of this new Piggly-Wiggly supermarket — because she can come in and shop… park her kiddies in the TV and Magazine Room especially provided for that purpose… and stop to rest her own tired feet while she sits on comfortable divans and sips coffee with her friends, in the conveniently located lounge in the store’s lobby.
The building, constructed by Tidmore Construction Co., is completely air-conditioned both summer and winter, with central heating and refrigerated cooling system.
And one of the finest sound systems will provide pleasing music during shopping hours, continuously and coincidentally with the music which is provided all over the Monterey Center, both inside and out.
Indirect lighting
Soft, indirect lighting is used in the dropped ceilings over the check-out stations… and a new type of fluorescent lighting throughout the rest of the store gives twice as much light per square foot as what hag been available heretofore.
Last, but not least, all meats will be weighed on completely automatic scales, and your change made on the new Change-Maker cash registers which tell you how much money you’ve coming back, and installed for the first time in a Piggly-Wiggly supermarket.
Covered, lighted walkways alongside the building provide protection from the weather, and shoppers may enter the building through electrically-operated doors on both sides as well as through the front entrance.
Woman with her two kids & a shopping cart at a vintage grocery store (1956)
MORE: Remember vintage coin-operated rides? Horses, spaceships, boats & more from the ’50s
A little Pyrex display at a vintage drugstore
Your change automatically figured! (1954)
Vintage National cash registers and printed store receipts at vintage grocery stores
“Now there’s real service — a register that figures our change!”
NOW SEE THIS: Check out 100 vintage 1970s supermarkets & retro grocery stores
1950s A&P grocery store
DON’T MISS: 80s grocery stores: See vintage supermarkets, plus find out how retro tech paved the way for modern retail
Vintage Winn Dixie supermarkets in the late 1950s
Kroger grocery stores in the 1950s
Old 1950s grocery stores
Vintage Food Fair grocery stores in the late 50s
NOW SEE THIS: 100 vintage 1960s supermarkets & old-fashioned grocery stores
10 Responses
I love looking at anything from the 50`s and 60`s, It brings back so many memories. Times were hard back then but we did manage somehow. Thank you for bringing back these pleasant memories.
Love to go back in time, such an innocent time period. The early 60’s, and 70’s a full two carts of groceries in the early 60’s? 45.00 meats included. The advertisements, signage brings back awesome memories keep them coming.
I worked at a Miller’s Super Market in 1960 as a sacker in Cheyenne. Wyo. This was a chain based in Denver. Co. What a great place to work until they sold out to National Tea Company. I remember their wooden floors that had to be oiled once a month. The Caddies got to do that job on Sundays. That was great duty for those of us who got the assignment. Time and a half was great for us since we were only paid .75 cents per hour. We also got to pinch a fresh fruit or Veggie since no one was there to watch over us. I seem to remember a stick or two of pepperoni disappearing from time to time as well. Great memories.
The supermarket we went to in the 1950’s was similar to today’s with the exception of the meat department and register area. You knew you were in the meat department as there were carcasses hanging and butchers cutting & packaging meat. Meat & alcoholic beverages were not sold on Sunday. The checkout area had bins of cardboard boxes as the choice was paper bags or boxes. Register tapes just showed the amounts, not what you purchased- similar to a calculator tape. One time there was a power outage and they were able to operate the oldest electronic registers by getting out a crank. Bottle boys would count returned glass bottles for credit.
We used to shop at Thorofare Markets. They gave S & H green stamps for almost 20 years.
COOL
Looking for picture of wooden food mover that pulled the food up to the checker
Grocery stores haven’t changed dramatically in 70 years. Perhaps the most striking differences are the clothing styles; it’s been a minute since I’ve gone grocery shopping wearing my double-breasted suit and fedora 😂 It’s fascinating to realize that in the 1950s, the fundamentals of grocery shopping that are so familiar to us now — cellophane wrap, cash registers, even fluorescent lighting — were all very new, and probably greatly impressed shoppers.
I miss seeing cleanliness of people’s appearances of yesterday. Today, everyone looks grungy and dirty. I’ll take the old days anytime.
I miss seeing cleanliness of people’s appearances of yesterday. Today, everyone looks grungy and dirty. I’ll take the old days anytime.