Those were the good old days…shopping at the A&P

Once upon a time, you didn’t shop for groceries on Sunday, because the supermarkets were closed. People who worked in the local A&P store got a day off.

 

Except for one. The store manager had to go in every Sunday to “check the refrigeration.”

 

Occasionally, other family members were invited to go along for the ride…and savor the lingering aroma emanating from the red Eight O’Clock Coffee grinders stationed by the checkout counters. 

It was really cold inside the meat coolers where the sides of beef and pork hung on meat hooks waiting for the butchers to chop and carve them up into family-size portions. 

On these special Sundays, the long and silent grocery aisles looked like bowling lanes. Ten small store brand gelatin boxes standing on their end could be arranged in a “10-pin triangle.” No ball? No problem. A larger sized pudding box sliding on its side would suffice. 

Meanwhile, my mother would casually stroll around the store to see what was new among the Ann Page products that lined the shelves. This was followed by a quick tour of the Jane Parker bakery section. 

My mother very rarely actually “shopped” for groceries. She just made shopping lists. She would call my father (the manager) and dictate. He would dutifully hand-pick her order…before heading home. 

“City chicken” was a favorite dish. Cubed pork and veal on a skewer to be pan-fried. 

Dad’s reward? He might dash in for a quick pop at the lounge in the Fraternal Order of Eagles club, which was only a hop-skip-and-jump from the A&P parking lot on Winter Street in Adrian, Mich. 

Ah yes, the 1950s were still “glory years” for A&P. The company was “king of the hill” in the grocery business from 1915-75. 

It’s a remarkable story. In 1859, George Francis Gilman began purchasing coffee and tea from clipper ships on the waterfront docks of New York City. By eliminating brokers, he was able to sell coffee and tea products to his customers at “cargo prices.” 

Gilman saw a business opportunity and opened multiple Gilman and Company retail tea and coffee stores in the various neighborhoods of the Big Apple. 

For a brief period, the company became the Great American Tea Company, but the name was changed to The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P) to commemorate the 1869 completion of the “First Transcontinental Railroad” connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. 

George Huntington Hartford, who was hired as an A&P stock clerk in 1861, took the reins at A&P in 1878, when Gilman retired. By this point, A&P was operating about 75 stores.

 

Shortly thereafter, two of Hartford’s sons joined the business – George Ludlum Hartford and John Augustine Hartford. Both started working as teenagers…to learn the business from the ground up. 

By 1900, A&P had grown to include 200 stores. The second generation of Hartfords would lead A&P onward and upward for nearly 50 years.

 

John and George L. Hartford

Dr. Marc Levinson, an economist, historian and author, said: “For more than four decades, from 1920 into the 1960s, A&P was the largest retailer in the world. At its peak, it had nearly 16,000 grocery stores in 3,800 communities.” 

At various times, A&P also sold “Food for the Mind,” the complete 25-volume set of the Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia. 

You could purchase one volume per week, so it took about six months to get them all. Volume 1 was maybe a quarter, with subsequent volumes selling for $1.89 apiece…or thereabouts.