Re: Favorite Grocery Stores:
My Favorite Grocery Stores are Trader-Joes, Safeway, Albertson's, here in Sacto, CA. and Holiday Market {in Woodland}. We did have a neat "Neighborhood" Store in the area that was called "Food Emporium" and the original owners went around the Neighborhood's asking the Neighbor's if they would sign the Petition to allow them to open the Store there. When they got to our house, my Parent's offered to help them out with taking the Petition around to get the Signatures. The Store opened up at it's original Building around 1946 or 1947. It had the Old-Fashioned Meat Department, operated by "Frank, the Butcher." He always gave us Kids a piece of Bologna or an Old-Fashioned Hot Dog as a treat, while our Parent's were at the Meat Department. He would also take Special Orders and when the item's were ready they would be in the Meat Case wrapped in the Butcher Paper, with the persons name on the Paper. When I would go to pick up the items, he told me that I could get an Old Fashioned Hot Dog out of the Case, while I was getting the Special Order Items. He didn't put the Hot Dogs or Bologna in the Large Walk-In Fridge, he kept them out in the Meat Case. The "Food Emporium" moved about 4-blocks to a newer location that was about 3-times the size of the original Store, that used to be called "Bi-Rite's" Market. I helped the Owners with pricing the Canned-Goods {in those days they had the Hand-Held Inked Stamping Machine, that you selected the price and Stamped it on the top of the Can's}.They carried a list of the Merchandise with them, to see what the Price should be, in order to set the Stamping Machine. They also had a much larger Meat Department as well as a larger Produce Department. Unfortunately that Store Building had lot's of problems with attempted Robberies. They had someone place 2-Glass Bottled Water containers in front of the Store and blew-up the front of the Store, luckily at least at night, so no one was hurt. Unfortunately later on a couple of years, a couple of younger {19 and 22} year old Clerk's were Kidnapped and Slain. To this day, the person{s} that did that have never been found and this happened in 1965. A Neighbor Girl and I helped to Raise Reward Money, at the front of the Store, where we set up a Cardtable with a Plastic Waste Can that we places a Cardboard Cover with a Slot in the Middle of the Cardboard, to allow people to put their Contributions into the Container. We also had one day that the Local Newspaper came there and our Pictures were taken to be put in along with the article about what we were doing to help raise the Reward Money. I don't even know what happened to the Money, although I'm guessing and hoping that the Parent's were eventually given a split of what we had collected. If I remember correctly, with our being only 15-years old, we collected around $350.00 in a few days of being there. We even had our Friends come and bring their Pennies, Nickles, Dimes and Quarter's there to help out with this Money.
Anyway, about Safeway, I've not been as happy with our first Safeway, because it was built on the Property that originally was the site of one of our Historical Theatre's, called the Alhambra Theatre, that was torn down to make way for the Safeway. The City people tried to get enough Petetion's Signed to not allow the Theatre to be torn down, but even though I believe they did get enough Signatures, no one would listed, so they tore down the Theatre anyway. I never would patronize that Store, until about 4-years ago, when I met one of my best Friends, who lives near that Store, so I was asked to take him there. "BTW" he is Legally Blind, so I take him to help him out with getting Groceries and we go out to the Malls together. Late last year, we had another Safeway open in where we call the Mid-Town area, which is closer to his area where he lives in the Downtown area and it is quite a lot larger than the original one and it has a real nice layout of the Aisles and the products. A couple of years ago Safeway attempted to make the original Store look somewhat like the Facade of the Alhambra Theatre that they torn down to make way for the Safeway Store, but they just added "Insults to Injuries" instead, in my opinion.
Our Albertson's as I'm guessing most, used to be Lucky's and that is the closest from where I live to go to for Grocery Shopping. It also has expanded quite a lot, since it took over becoming Albertson's.
We just had another Trader-Joe's open last year closer to home now, with a Longs Drugs across the Street from it. The Longs Drugs here are opening Post Office/UPS capability in them now, to keep up with the competetion of the UPS Stores.
My Parent's would shop at the locally owned and quite Large Chain of Raley's and Bel-Air Stores. They have thru the years actually branched out, to even Nevada and I believe up North into Oregon and Washington State.
The Holiday Market that I go to is about 45-minutes North from where I live and I mostly go there when I'm going to the town it is in, to the Cemetery. The Town is called Woodland and it was my Mother's Home-Town.
Peace and Happiness, Steve
SactoTeddyBear...
