Friday, April 10, 2015

Acme – Chester Springs, Pennsylvania


Location: 400 Simpson Dr, Chester Springs, PA

The Chester Springs store opened in 2003. It is located in a lightly populated area with no other supermarkets in the immediate vicinity. A Giant, abandoned Genunardi's and Redner's, which has recently opened in a former SuperFresh, are all located a few miles south in Lionville. Chester Springs was among a slew of new stores built in the early to mid 2000's under Albertsons' leadership. As we've seen in recent years, many of these stores have closed, most recently the one in Warminster. Not sure how Chester Springs does. It doesn't seem to be located in an area where it could ever become a terribly high volume store. It was doing brisk business on this particular day. 


The photos in this post were taken a little over a year ago during the same road trip when I visited other stores in the area including Exton, Downingtown and Westtown.





Heading inside the FOOD entrance...




Albertsons Marketplace interior with some layout differences compared to other early 2000's stores we've seen on the blog. The Bakery here is located along the right wall instead of out on the sales floor running along aisle 1.


The Starbucks is now Bucks County Coffee. It may have been removed at this point. Acme is yanking these coffee bars out of stores. There is a small seating area up in the left front corner. This was one of the best café set ups I've seen at an Acme. I'm surprised they haven't used this configuration more often.






The blue light boxes are not illuminated


I would think this store does some pretty decent business. It is stocked to the gills!






The Meat and Seafood signage is a bit stunted. No light boxes either. Below is the same department from the now shuttered Clifton store...


The sign in Clifton sprawled over the whole department.

Back to Chester Springs...




Judging from my visit, this is a very well maintained store.


Plain white tiles in the frozen food aisles.


Here's a look at Sicklerville's frozen food aisle with the typical tile pattern for this decor package.


A less commonly used frozen food tile as seen in the Randolph store.




Looks like the milk cases may have been replaced since the store was built.






Walking along the front end to cards, floral and seasonal...






Customer Service is on the Pharmacy side of the store. We'll now jump over to the other end of the front-end...


Lower ceiling over the checkouts...


Self checkouts still here although these pictures were taken over a year ago.






GIANT "Thank You" sign! Never seen anything like it.





AERIAL VIEWS




Drive thru Pharmacy!





HISTORIC IMAGES


2013


2008


2002

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

New Britain Continued...



Location: 505 West Butler Avenue, New Britain, PA

Exterior photos have arrived of the New Britain store! The same person who treated us to an spectacular tour of the interior, returned recently to the property to take these photos. In a couple of weeks, I am going to move these photos over to the original post so we have one, comprehensive post of the store. For now they'll live here to make sure no one misses out on them. 

In addition to the exterior photos, there are also some additional interior photos that were not included in the original post. That was completely my fault. The photos were sent in groups stretching over numerous emails and I unfortunately lost track of some of them. 


The exterior signs have been removed but the interior appears to be untouched since closing.













Below are the interior photos that weren't included in the original post...




The Salad Bar was not replaced during the during the Alberstons Marketplace remodel. The original remains standing on the right side of the Produce Department. It was usually moved to the Fruit Bar area when these 90's stores were remodeled.




The keystones from the 90's Red/White/Blue package remained until the end.








Very interesting site here... the 90's tiles were not completely replaced along the back wall. I assume something was located along the wall that blocked the old tile but had been removed when the store closed.




A look inside the Pharmacy side vestibule.

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Former Acme – Lakewood, New Jersey



Location: 2nd and Monmouth Streets, Lakewood, NJ 

The former Lakewood Acme still shows the blue script logo on Bing Maps! This despite the fact that Acme has been gone from this location for many years. I discovered this last September when doubgbalt, a frequent contributor here at Acme Style, had found an ad listing the address of the store. I immediately went to Bing Maps to survey the situation and was stunned to see the Acme logo still on the building. I then jumped over to Google to get a street level view only to find a more recent view of the building with the logo gone. So back to Bing Maps I went for some screen grabs in case they updated their aerials any time in the near future. Last week I received an email from someone else pointing out the logo on Bing Maps so I decided it was time to get this building up on the blog!


Acme opened here on March 17, 1954. Originally the building had the tower sign right above the entrance. A portion of the base of the tower appears to remain on the awning. The tower is clearly visible in some of the historic aerials. It is so clearly seen in the 1986 image that you see "ACME" is no longer on the tower. Judging from earlier historic images, the store may have closed in the 70's.








A photo on flickr of the building with the Acme logo. I had seen this photo on flickr when Acme Style was in its infancy but wasn't sure of its exact location. 

HISTORIC AERIALS


2007


2002


1986
The tower still standing in 1986 without the ACME letters. Wonder why no one painted over the front of the store.


1979
Hard to know if it was still an Acme at this point.


1970


1963
Judging from the parking lot, the place was getting a nice crowd back in 1963! The rear parking lot was also reconfigured by this point as you can see down below in the next available view.


1956


1953
Looks as though a train station stood here originally.

Below are some screen grabs from Google Maps...


Logo gone :(





Monday, April 6, 2015

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

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Max Pak Is Back!


 Photos courtesy of AbercrombieeMike

Recently, AbercrombieeMike came across the Max Pak label on some jumbo chicken packs. This may be the first reappearance of the super-sized packaging that was Acme's answer to the warehouse club boom of the the early 90's. 

Update 4.8.15: AbercrombieeMike found this packaging at the Ogletown Acme located at 1 University Plaza, Newark, DE. 



The original MAX Pak logo as seen in a circular from March 1994...


Same tag line too!