Your Daily Awesome

Groceteria.com is an oddly absorbing and expansive tribute to the grocery stores of yesteryear. Within moments of clicking onto the site, I was flooded with memories of going to the Economical and the A&P with my grandmothers in the suburbs of New Orleans 25 years ago. I think this is the sort of response that the site is intended to provoke. Says the webmaster:

Supermarkets are one of the most important and overlooked elements of American life. I’m fascinated by them, and my road trips always include visits to the local chains, from Winn-Dixie in the south to Giant in Baltimore, from Cub Foods and Rainbow in Minneapolis to Kohl’s in Wisconsin. Harris Teeter, Alpha Beta, Piggly Wiggly, and the “holy trinity” of Safeway, Kroger, and A&P: I’ve done more than my share…

I really hate the new breed of supermarkets which rival Macy’s for square footage. I’m not too fond of small corner stores either. I think I’d be happiest if supermarket evolution had ceased around 1968 or so. I usually make weekend treks to a long-forgotten Lucky store on Alemany Boulevard and a mid-1960s era Safeway on 7th Avenue just to satisfy this craving for dowdy little markets.

It’s a little sad that people don’t get nearly as nostalgic about their old supermarkets as they do about drive-ins and movie palaces. Maybe it’s because supermarkets are too “everyday” and no one could imagine them to be a source of sentiment or worthy of a glance back in time, right?

Wrong. I’ve been looking at old supermarkets a lot lately. I’ve been researching them and even taking pictures of their remains. I’ve been leafing through musty old city directories at the library to find out what used to be where. I’ve realized two things: First, this is a very interesting subject, about which I might get very obsessive. Second, I really need a life.

check out the site here