Acme no longer #1...

Acme has officially lost it’s title as number 1 grocer in the Philadelphia region. ShopRite has taken over the top spot. This doesn’t come as much surprise since Acme share has been in serious decline for years now but I do think we’ve all been hoping Acme would turn things around and hold on to number 1.

The news comes in an article from philly.com which discusses the troubles over at Genuardi’s, whose woes in the area have been similar to Acme’s... big corporation takes over locally based chain, forces west coast business management on east coast stores, messes with product selection, alienates loyal customers, closes stores, rapidly loses market share... etc. The Acme mention comes at the very end.

The article was sent in by an Acme Style fan. I haven’t been able to find any other articles discussing Acme’s official descent to number 2. Still looking for clues about Acme’s turnaround plans which are supposed to be in the works but can’t find anything online.

Former Acme – Hallstead, Pennsylvania

An abandoned Big M, which is a former BiLo, which happened to be a former Acme! Certainly one of the smallest pitched-roof stores I've ever seen. It was probably built towards the end of the pitched-roof era in the late 60's to early 70's. Acme left this location in 1994 when 45 of it's 240 stores were sold to Penn Traffic. Most of those stores, if not all, became BiLo's. A few that I had been in back in the 90's had little remodeling done after the stores switched banners. I was in this store once when it was a BiLo. Not sure when Big M took over or how long they lasted here. There is a larger, independent grocery store across the street.

According to the "for rent" sign, the store has 17,000 square feet. The section extending out to the left appears to have been an addition. I received an email with a bunch of information about this store quite a while ago and haven't been able to locate it. The emailer did say the left section was an addition that was added on during the Acme days. It was also mentioned that flooding in the area may have hastened the closing of the Big M. 

Looks to be a standard issue Acme vestibule. Like most pitched-roof stores, it has only one set of doors to pass through when entering. It is unusual for the vestibule to be under the awning.

I believe Big M did a remodel here after BiLo left. It's been so long since I was in this store I'm not entirely sure. Cases and shelving look quite new. Check out the tiled ceiling! It's not exposed to the rafters which pitched-roof stores were famous for. I have another pitched-roof store in the Acme Style vault that has ceiling tiles as well. 

Looks to be about  6 aisles under the pitched-roof section. 3 more under the flat roof section for a total of 9. May have been 10 aisles back in the Acme's days before the Produce aisle was increased to a double-wide.

Although it looks like clean-up is still in full swing, I think the place had been deserted for a while. Hopefully someone familiar with the area can give us more concrete information.

Heading back outside...

Looks as though the addition doubled the size of the store. The left side of the addition contains back room space. The vestibule on the left side there may have been used as a car coral. I believe the only entrance and exit was to the right side. Not a very grand looking pitched-roof store. Looks like it got hit with a shrinking ray.

A very unusual pitched-roof store from the back as well. I wonder how this odd-ball store came to be especially when there was plenty of space to build a regular pitched-roof store like Parkesburg.

Very limited aerial shots online. No up close shots of this area are available. The Big M is the dark-roofed building on the left. Rob's Country Market is all the way on the right side of the image.

Street views were available over on Google Maps. The store looks to be open here. Apartment buildings line the left side of the parking lot.

A strip mall extends to the right of the store.

Perhaps another grocery store will give this location a shot and give Rob's Country Market a run for it's money. But with only 1,200 people living in Hallstead, there may not be much of a need for a second grocery store. 

Classic Acme! Mapleshade NJ

Welcome to the Mapleshade Acme! Located at 41 West Main Street right in the center of town. One of the smallest and oldest Acmes still in operation today. Also one of the only street-front stores still in existence. It's a must-see for the serious Acme fan.

Bill Haines, who has been leaving some extremely informative comments here on the blog, sent in some interesting facts about the Mapleshade store:

• Opening day - October 7, 1953

• It was a replacement for the old 1940's Acme just down the street. (We will get a better look at the former store down below)

• The tower seen here was part of the original 1953 building but has been shortened over the years. It looked similar to the one at the Wildwood store which can be seen here.

• A small addition was added sometime in the late 50's to mid 60's. The newer section is just beyond the tower to the corner. We'll see clearer evidence of the expansion inside.

The newer section of the building now serves as the front-end of the store. Aisles run parallel to Main Street. Entrance and exits are along Main Street and back by the rear parking lot. All these years later, the exterior still has the 1950's feel to it. One of most unaltered exteriors of any Acme still around today.

Did someone put that plant up by the tower or did something just start growing there?

The Good Spirits Liquor store used to be the good ol' Acme! The old Acme sign structure is still intact on top of the store. Interesting to see how the "tower" sign evolved from the old store to the new store. This image is from Google Maps. 

UPDATE 10.16.10: This is NOT the old Acme!  Details to come.

Acme's parking lot is to the rear of the building. A one-way alley runs along side/front of the store. 

Cars seen here are actually parked at the gas station next door. 

The rear entrance and exit sends you down a ramp inside...

Produce cases line the wall on the right.

And here we are inside! A very attractive and well maintained store. The Industrial Circus Decor looking very nice here. I believe someone wrote in and said this store previously had the Checkerboard Arch decor. The last remodel looks to have been quite significant with all new cases, flooring and registers. This store does not have a Bakery despite the ample selection of baked goods here in the front.

The entrance ramp shown earlier is behind the produce cases.

The small Meat Department runs along the wall of aisle 1. This store may not have a fully functioning meat room. 

This truly is the Corner Deli. The first few aisles are shorter to make room for the Deli. The store has 11 aisles although all are relatively short. 

Dairy runs along the back wall.

Aisle 11! Main Street just outside the windows. Frozen Food is in aisle 10.

The old bread delivery room... straight ahead there... now serving as hi-tech computer storage. I find these bread rooms absolutely fascinating. Some 50's and 60's Acmes didn't have them... bread went right into the Produce delivery room... while others had dedicated highly secured brick rooms just for the daily deliveries of bread. You can see the divide between old and new up on the ceiling.

Customer Service is mostly blocked in with display cases.

Now looking across the store from Customer Service over to Produce and Cheese. The separation of the old and the new section is marked by the support columns.

The new section has drop ceiling tiles with the old does not. The "new" section is not all the new. According to the historical aerial images down below, it was added on sometime between 1956 and 1967.

If I remember correctly, this store has 4 registers. It wasn't very busy the couple of times I have been here although that's certainly not a true indication of the amount of business it does. It must have been doing pretty well as of the early 2000's to get such a significant remodel. Most other Acmes of this size were put out of their misery around that time after years of neglect by American Stores.

The bread drop off door to the right of the entrance and exit. (Apologies for all the ugly power lines. I haven't had time to photoshop them out of the pictures.) And now around to the back...

Interesting paint job to give the back of the store some life. Break room and bathrooms up on the second floor there. If you look closely at the door above the dumpsters, you can see the beam that sticks out of the roof for lifting compressors to the second floor.  

The street sign for the entrance along Lippincott Ave.

The parking lot along the back of all of the stores was redone recently. Acme shoppers tend to use the lot on the right. The parking spots were angled back in the day which you can see in the old aerial shots below.

Probably around the time the Industrial Circus remodel happened.

The new section to the left has been added on as of 1967.


The original building. Parking was available along the side of the store before the addition was put on, turing the side into the front.

Go see this Acme. Who knows how much longer it will be around. I wouldn't be surprised if CVS has already expressed interest in the building.

Bushels of Values Ad from 1953!

Ad courtesy of Patrick Richardson

Prices are effective at the following stores...

Fair Haven: To visit the Fair Haven Acme, please click here.
Red Bank:  Coming soon to Acme Style!

Rolling out updates to former posts. Some more interesting than others but I've listed them all here so no one misses out on the latest developments of their favorite Acme locations. Going forward I will do group updates like this one every couple of months to keep everyone in the loop.

In other news... from here on out, the "Big Post of the Week" will debut on Friday mornings. Other posts may go up during the week such as News Breaks or Memorabilia posts, but the big one will arrive fresh on Friday mornings!

And now to the updates...

Abandoned Acme-New Providence

The much delayed A&P Fresh... which rose from the rubble of the old Acme... opens today! Check out a picture and article here. For the original post, click here.

Jersey Shore Acme-Tukerton

Check out this really cool web page that shows the former Acmes of Tukerton. A former 50's store is just down the road from the present day Acme. 

Jersey Shore Acme-Beach Haven

Some new pictures sent in by Michael Lisicky. A couple up-close shots showing some interesting detail. The pictures have been added to the bottom of the Beach Haven post.

Abandoned Acme-West Chester PA

Acme has fianlly left the building. It is now boarded up and available for rent. Check it out here. For the original post, click here.

Abandoned Acme-Quakertown PA

Acme has FINALLY left the building... Part 2. No pictures to show but a commenter has left word that Acme no longer holds the lease. Walmart will be expanding... but not into the old Acme space. More details at the end of the Quakertown post.

Lawrenceville Acme's "M" on fire!

Check out this crazy picture of the M on fire. It doesn't look real! For new pictures of the "M" getting replaced, click here.

Abandoned Acme-Clementon NJ

You wanna go in the old Grants store? How about up on the roof? Click here to see it all!

Former Jersey City Acme-Now a Fine Fare!
Fine Fare opened in the old Jersey City Acme way back in February just a couple of weeks after Acme closed. Pictures of the new store are now included at the bottom of the Jersey City posts.

Abandoned Acme! Parkesburg PA

The Parkesburg Acme has officially been declared...

Acme Style's All-Time Favorite Acme!

Not only a favorite but also the very reason Acme Style was born. I discovered pictures of this store online back in 2004. Couldn't believe someone had the foresight to photograph this store prior to closing. Even went so far to contact the company to request permission to photograph the interior. The pictures were used for a web page entitled "Last of a Kind". I was absolutely stunned when I first came across the site. A whole page devoted to nothing but an old Acme. At the time, I never thought I would see an open pitched-roof store again let alone the fish-eye logo sign. And believe me, I had been trying. Searching all over the web for photos of old stores to add to my own personal collection. All the searching lead me to "retail history" sites like the Weis Project, Grocerteria and Lablescar which provided for hours of entertainment. But what about Acme? There was a serious lack of photos and history of the company online. Certainly not enough to satisfy my cravings So I spent the next few years wondering if I could start a site on Acme. 6 years later Acme Style was up and running.

"Last of a Kind" is a web page by Alan Turner. Created back in 2003 just before the store closed. I have reached out to Alan a couple of times but have never received a response. You can view his page by clicking here. Thanks to Alan and to the other retail history sites for the inspiration to start Acme Style.

Down below there are no shortage of photos for this store. I shot every last angle and detail despite the sub-zero temperatures of the day. This store truly is "last of a kind" and by some miracle still stands in it's nearly original form after being in business for 34 years and now closed for 7 years. While I was there taking pictures someone started shouting to me from the other side of the parking lot "Turn it into a blowling alley!"

Breaking news: The 3 colored squares on the right side were not in the same order on every store! Who knew? (The bottom square here has faded from blue to nearly white) When I first saw this sign years ago, I knew the colored squares were out of order. But what was the right order? After reviewing all of the fish-eye signs appearing on Acme Style, it appears the correct order, or at least most commonly used, is... from top to bottom... blue, yellow, red.

Stores with other orders include...

Port Reading: blue, red, yellow

Haddon Heights: red, yellow, blue.

Parkesburg was a small pitched-roof store with an awning just over the entrance and exit. Larger pitched-roof stores had an awning across the entire front of the store. It's interesting how the pitched-roof model got smaller and became less deluxe over the years. That may have been done to reduce costs of construction and maintenance as Acme built these stores at a frantic pace throughout the 60's. This location opened in 1969, just as the pitched-roof era was coming to an end.

Similar picture to the wider one above but I love the interior roof view here. I imagine when these stores were first built the glass fronts created an illusion of no front at all.

The emergency exits were included in later models of the pitched-roof stores. You can get a preview of the decor here... the dreaded Convenience Store look. I will say, however, that the look seems to have worked better here than at most other locations.

"For Rent" sign in the window. Offered by Levin Property Management which seems to be in charge of alot of former Acme's throughout New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Magic Carpets for opening the doors all the way to the end. Notice how the door handles with the old cursive Acme logo are gone. You can see the door handles at "Last of a Kind" by clicking here. Unusual for the logo to have been cursive on a late 60's store. Most had the fish-eye logo on the handles which you can see at the Somers Point store by clicking here.

A second set of doors? Not common to pitched-roof stores. The Clayton store still has only one set of doors. There, you are blasted by air vents when you walk into the vestibule to keep the outside air out. You can see the lack of interior doors at the Somers Point store by clicking here.

The manager's office/customer service was behind the brick wall there. The window above was for keeping an eye on customers coming and going from the store.

This is a first for me... the bread delivery door was inside the vestibule instead of on the outside of the store. Located here since having it on the outside was not option due to a store being right next door. Not sure why the original door was resized.

A view right into the bread room which was more likely used for computer equipment in the last decade or two.

Lots to see here in this shot. First off... the front of the store was retiled at some point. I would guess that happened during the "Convenience Store" upgrade. According to Alan's information, the store had a "major" remodel in 1988 but it does not appear to have had the 80's remodel. There is no checkerboard floor and the sign was not replaced with the red oval logo. I'm guessing that the '88 remodel entailed new cases throughout the store possibly brought in from a closed store or from an officially 80's remolded store. Perhaps the 80's decor was put up on the walls but the store certainly did not receive the full 80's remodel package.

Secondly... check out the Customer Service area. It looks to have been removed from this location when the front was retiled. There are no scars on the floor from where a counter or express checkout stand would have been. It looks as though this alcove just had shelving along the walls. Customer Service may have been moved down to the last register.

Thirdly... take a look at the scar along the brick wall. You can see a markings from the steps that went up to the manager's office.

Only 7 aisles here. The first and second extended further into the front of the store than the rest. This was common in smaller stores although the aisles were often shortened to match the rest during remodels and upgrades in order to increase space for Produce, seasonal selections and displays for higher profit items.

You can see how the first aisle was the longest. The second aisle, second longest.

Produce backroom through the door.

Unlike most Convenience Store upgrades, this store had alot of department names up on the walls. 3 along Produce. The first (which you can see below) may have been "Floral" but doubtful since this store was so small. "Lunch Meats" was probably last with "Produce" in the middle.

Produce spot lighting still in place but most likely not used since the store's earlier days.

Deli Department in the back corer.

Meat Department along the back wall.

The Dairy Department had two names along the wall. Possibly "Dairy" and "Eggs" which was the standard in the 80's remodels.

Small area of original wood paneling back in the corner that didn't get painted white. Check out the old water fountain still in place.

"Bakery" most likely on the front section although the bread was often moved to a regular aisle during the 90's so the Dairy aisle could be extended down further.

Relatively clean windows and the sun shinning on the back of the store made for some of the best interior shots ever. Some Photoshop tricks help clean the windows for a extra clear view.

To see the magic that lives behind this very sign, please click here to see. The colored tiles are most definitely still in place on the other side. Removing them would compromise the integrity of the front of the store.

Heading around back...

This one is for the fans of backdoor numbers and signage! The door on the right says "Frozen Food" and "Dairy". The letters on the left door are blurry even in my original photo. It looks as though it may say "Rubbish". Not sure if that was a backdoor label option.

Breakroom and employee bathrooms up on the second floor. Does anyone know the purpose of the overhang at the top? Most pitched-roof stores had them and remain on most that have been converted to other stores. It's one of the biggest clues I look for when confirming a former Acme pitched-roof building.

A rear shot is the only "Bird's Eye" view available on Bing Maps.

Here's a view of the shopping center from Google Maps. I was so focused on getting up close shots, I didn't get one of the whole center.

The only shopping center in town. Below you can see how small the town is...

Back in the 60's it seemed Acme went throughout Eastern Pennsylvania and dropped a pitched-roof store in every small town it came across.

I've said it before and I'll say it again... the greatest grocery store design and store signage of all-time.

Thank you to the Supermarket Gods who prevented this sign from being painted over when Acme vacated the premises.