Groceteria.com: Did You Bring Bottles?
 Does grocery shopping feel like just another chore? Maybe that's because today's big-box retailers and discounts stores have lost the kitschy charm of 1950s architecture and sleek 1960s modern styling.
If you miss the pre-prefab Safeways or perhaps you're lucky enough to have a vintage Luckys down the block, you may want to join David Gwynn and the legion of "groceteria" fans who swap photos and stories about charming Winn-Dixies and A&P markets. Gwynn's site combines well-researched history with a dash of nostalgia, a small dose of irony, and a lot of love for the days before cookie-cutter strip malls overtook America. We caught up with David in between shopping trips to see what's new in the land of old stores. When we reviewed your site way back in 2001, you were living in San Francisco and hunting down the few '60s-'70s era Safeways left in Yahoo!'s neck of the woods. Now you're in North Carolina. How does the grocery landscape compare? Everything is a lot cheaper. And the lines are a lot shorter. And here, we have liver pudding and Cheerwine freely available in all stores. But as far as history—which is my primary focus—goes, there are a lot fewer old stores here. In California, land is so expensive that it's often more economical to work with the same old space you're already in rather than try to build a new store. That's not the case here, though. Thus, it's really hard to find vintage stores still in operation here. But you still run across one here and there. Are you back in A&P country? Can you smell the coffee? Actually, A&P has pretty much retreated to the Northeast. Their last remaining southern stores (around New Orleans) were really hit hard by Katrina, and they're up for sale now. It's sad, because the French Quarter store has been open for 70 years and probably qualifies as the oldest continuously operating chain supermarket in America now. Alas, the coffee smell usually comes from an attached Starbucks now. So, what's the price of tuna at your local supermarket these days? Fifty or sixty cents, usually. But the cans keep getting smaller. Do you run across many people who get the "bottles" reference? Sometimes. It's usually people in their 40s and over who remember. There have even been some discussions on the message board about the convoluted ways stores used to do bottle check-ins. We have to admit, we didn't have bottles. But some of us got a kick out of the Charles Chips picture. That's probably too specific for a web site though? I don't think there's any subject too specific or obscure to have its own web site now. It's just like how there's a porn site for every imaginable fetish. If your obsession happens to be a specific cereal or a McDonald's uniform type, there's probably STILL someone who's beaten you to the punch and put up a web site about it. Most of these sites aren't very good, mind you, but they're there. Do you have a favorite era of grocery store architecture? Definitely the period from about 1948 to 1968. That's when stores started being really purpose-built (rather than just being inserted into existing commercial buildings) and when they really started having a sense of style. If you saw a Safeway or an A&P from the distance, you knew what it was; the designs were distinctive, if not always distinguished. Is there a least favorite? We're guessing it might be right now... Actually, it would be the 1990s. That was the peak of the bland, stucco-clad "this building could be dang near anything" period. We're actually starting to see a little more style and some differentiation in newer stores now, as competition intensifies. It's not a supermarket chain, but Target's new buildings are really cool, and I think their attention to design is filtering down to other retailers. Stores are becoming much more iconic again. I like that. Where you surprised by the reaction to your site? Your message boards seem pretty active—lots of people are asking about supermarket chain history. Yeah, I've definitely been surprised, particularly when semi-major news outlets started contacting me once in a while. And it was nice when the hometown paper interviewed me and put me on the front page. There are a lot of different angles that can hook people on the subject: Some are interested in the architecture and design aspect, some are into business history, and some just love the nostalgia of it all. Pretty much everyone has spent time in a supermarket, much of it during childhood, so lots of memories get stirred up. What are the grocery-store fans like? Any flame wars erupt on the boards? We're generally a polite and rather geeky bunch. I don't remember any significant flame wars, and that's probably because everyone knows I'm always standing right next to a fire extinguisher. Generally, current operations are off-limits on the site (and the board), so there aren't any strike arguments or Wal-Mart bashing or that sort of thing. It's all about history and determining what that old building on El Camino Real or Peachtree Street used to be. What keeps you updating the site? You've been at it a long time with a unique topic. Everybody's gotta have a hobby, I guess. This one gives me an excuse to travel and to visit neighborhoods (and whole cities) that most tourists would probably skip. I love exploring strange cities. I love taking pictures of buildings. And I love spending my time lurking in dark, dusty local history rooms at various libraries and carefully entering data into spreadsheets while leafing through old city directories and newspaper clippings. It's heaven for me, even though it probably sounds like torture to most people. Has Groceteria lead to any new developments in your life? New career path? New friends? New shopping habits? Indirectly, it led to my meeting the love of my life. He was a reader of another of my web sites, and we met when I was on a Groceteria research trip to Fresno in 2001. We've been together ever since, and he's amazingly tolerant of my quirks. That's the joy of marrying a fellow geek. Also, spending all that time in libraries has inspired me to start work on my Master's in Library and Information Studies in the Fall. What web sites do you frequent the aisles of? Malls of America—vintage malls; U.S. Highways—from US1 to US 830; Under the Orange Roof—Howard Johnson's tribute site; Agilitynut's Roadside Architecture; and The Comics Curmudgeon [For more on The Comics Curmudgeon, check out the Picks Profile!] Thanks bringing back those bottles, David! See you in the checkout line.
| 
