Pleasant Family Shopping

[twintubdexter]

many many thanks...

...to all those who posted the wonderful photos and links on this thread. I'm reminded of stores from my "Beaver Cleaver" childhood and my days as a trainee at the Bay Area's old Emporium Department store. I will always be greatful for their giving me a buyer's position in San Francisco and effectively pushing me out of the closet and right on to Castro Street. I'm an old timer who goes all the way back to hand-cranking the registers during power outages because "the show must go on."

"S-2" The Emporium's second suburban store at the Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto. The "Big E" meant big selection and was seen from Santa Rosa in the north to Salinas in the south.

 

[scott55405]

Twintub, was the Emporium sucked into Macy's web, or what became of it? I remember a couple of years ago visiting San Francisco I was in a sort of mall, on Market Street I think, that once had been probably the main location for this store. Does that sound right? I know I'm familiar with the name and that the store existed.

 

[alr2903]

I remember this kind of logo in Flint Michigan in the early 60's kind of the, Kmart is S.S. Kresge, notice the stacked double S to the left of the K Mart on the sign.

 

[scott55405]

After perusing this Pleasant Family site today, one interesting thing I seem to take away is that many of these so-called "discount" stores in the 1960s were in many cases better stocked, organized and staffed than some of today's more upscale department stores.

I think about that when I go into a Penney's today. I think in the early 80s we had more management on duty at any given time during the day than staff for the entire store now!

It was also fun to find 1964 grand opening pictures of a grocery store about 1/2 mile from my house, the first I shopped in after moving here!

 

[scott55405]

Great observation ALR! I saw the picture and it hadn't hit me over the head that that was the "SS"!

 

[Unimatic1140]

Anyone for a target run?

 

[qsd-dan]

Anyone for a target run?

Whoa!

I didn't realize Target existed that far back. Around here, Target bought out Gemco around 1987 or so.

 

[scott55405]

The Target in the picture is the original one in Roseville, Minnesota, which opened in 1962. A Target still exists on the site, but unfortunately the original was torn down a few years back and replaced with a new one. The replacement is a very nice, much larger store, but I'm kind of bummed they didn't save the very first one.

Target stayed largely in Minnesota through the 60s and 70s; having forayed first into Colorado I think it was. It was in the 80s they really started expanding in earnest. In Minnesota in the urban areas there's one every mile or two in some places. I don't think they've saturated quite that heavily anywhere else, including here. The former Gemco site closest to me is an Albertson's, but that's probably because Target had taken over another old discounter just a short distance away.

 

[scott55405]

"Super Centers"-everything old is new

BTW the early incarnations of Target and Zayre had in-house, full service supermarkets under the same roof, lest anyone think that is a new idea that's come about in the last 10 years. One critical difference is they were self-contained, unionized stores (ie, union rules and separate checkouts). Until about the early 1970s when the rules apparently changed, the department store portion would be open on Sunday while the grocery area was closed. For several years even after that, there was no meat counter service on Sundays (apparently subject to still more rules not changed til later). And yes, they bagged your groceries for you and you drove up to a pick up area where they were placed in your car for you.

The Target grocery areas were operated by Applebaum's, a predecessor to what modern day Minnesotans know as "Rainbow". I'm not sure who operated Zayre, may have been Super Valu. Target discontinued it around 1973 or 4; Zayre had it until their stores closed in that area around 1980.

Early Targets also had full service bakeries, restaurants, and automotive service.

 

[ironrite]

Duality Accounts

Scott, I'm still in banking and yes item processing has changed. Now with electronic imaging the checks can be captured at the branch or at the merchant level and then electronically transmitted for processing. Of course some encoding and sorting goes on, but not like in the 70s and 80s.

When I worked in the credit card division at Bank of America, in the mid-late 90s they still had duality accounts. You got a VISA and a Mastercard tied to one line of credit. Early on it was a Bank Americard and a Master Charge. Some merchants only took one or the other, so this way you could use your revolving charge account at more merchants.

 

[scott55405]

That's interesting about the duality accounts, I never knew about those! I love saying "Bank Americard" and MasterCharge" to younger friends and the blank look it elicits, LOL.

I was a "proof operator" and sometimes a microfilmer from 1979 to 1985. After a while, the sorter somehow microfiled the checks as they were being sorted, so that was eliminated. There were 3 shifts, and I think on my shift there were about 80 people. I also sometimes operated an old IBM I think it was proof machine with 32 pockets, which was used for items rejected by the sorter.

 

[jeffg]

In my part of southern Calif, we had "White Front" discount stores, which eventually became Targets. Even back then, it was where people who couldn't afford stores like Broadway and May Co went to buy clothes.

Interior shot:

 

[scott55405]

Remembering Zayre

Zayre was kind of a dive compared to Target even back then when the Targets weren't nearly as upscale and nice as they are now. Still, it was a fun store for a kid and probably a good place to get things like cleaning products, health and beauty aids, certain hard goods, small appliances and what not.

The one I was most familiar with had a lot of leased areas. It had a liquor store, part of but closed off from the rest of the building with a completely separate entrance per Minnesota law, a pet store, which was a small enclosed area right inside the main entrance, and an optical concession. They actually had a fantastic bakery where many bought special occasion cakes, and there was a mezzanine that covered two sides of the building containing the store's offices, a barber shop and separate full service beauty salon (complete with lucite hooded hair dryers and pink walls and upholstery), and a furniture and appliance department (they carried Norge, appliances were eventually dropped).

 

[scott55405]

Jeff, they had some cool looking buildings, which I saw on the site. I think the range closest in the pic and the one the mother and daughter are looking at are either a Roper or Caloric. I think they were the two that most often positioned their burner controls like that. I know this because I have a Caloric! LOL

I think I learned on a similar historical site awhile back that The May Co. had a discount arm called "May Mart".

 

[jeffg]

Scott, I don't remember seeing May Mart. But I do remember May Co's clearance/bargain basement at their North Hollywood/Valley Plaza store. One winter I stumbled on the finest cashmere v-necks I ever laid hands on, for $50/each.

 

[scott55405]

May Mart-From Mall Hall of Fame

Sounds like maybe it was something they did or tried inside their actual stores. This is the only reference I've ever seen to it, so then again, maybe it was only tried once:

May Company located its 12th Los Angeles store at WHITTIER QUAD. It opened August 2, 1965, featuring 248,000 square feet of floor space. The 5-level store included a "Maymart" and free-standing Auto Center There was also an adjacent parking garage, with space for 1,400 cars.