Extinct supermarkets

[Basil]

We had a George Mason's when I was a child. I don't know if they existed anywhere else.

[hellymedic]

MacFisheries! There's a name! Became MacMarket, then International Stores...

[IanN]

Lipton > Gateway> Somerfields> Morrisons

I think that was the evolution.

International > Gateway> Somerfield  and then  bought out by Cooperative
I think.

I worked for Gateway
Liptons became Presto (became cooperative pioneer where I was)

[Jaded]

Somerfiled became Morrisons.

Morrisons are Leeds based, therefore Northern, therefore questionable.

[SteveC]

When I was a student, in Manchester, another Southerner friend and I used to define civilisation by how far north Sainsbury's had penetrated.
Even the biggest supermarkets were really regional then (late '70s'). I'd never seen a Morrison's or an Asda before going to Manchester.

Back home and back into the '60s the only supermarket local to us was Savage's which I've always assumed was a one-off local shop.
After a while the other local food 'department store' Lancaster & Crook (you used to have to pay in each section, fruit and veg separately from groceries and so on) changed to be a 'supermarket' with checkouts.

Savage's now appears to be a Co-op while Lankies (as we always called it) seems to be a dance studio.

[rogerzilla]

Rusts had quite a few branches, mainly in Surrey, but also one just over the road from where I live now in east Swindon.  It's a Co-Op these days.

[FifeingEejit]

The Somerfields round here (Dundee) were bought by The Co-Op group who I think bought the smaller stored.
Edit: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/jul/16/coop.somerfield

More a case of large convenience stores here but:
Watson and Philip had a chain brand of "VG"
Many VGs became "Morning Noon and Night" which was sub-branded MACE

When the owner of MNN sold up (then blew his money on a football team...) the shops were bought by the Scottish Midland Co-Op.

The result of this is best seen in Beauly, where on one side of the street is a Co-Op group Co-Op and on the other side of the street a Scot Mid Co-Op.
https://goo.gl/maps/p9LJpUoJMeJ2

[Exit Stage Left]

Booths is probably the best food retailer in the country. I won't shop there because you always spend twice as much as you thought you would. 

[rafletcher]

Presumably no connection with Lipton tea?

Yep, Sir Thomas Lipton. Liptons was the first supermarket in my home town of Crowborough, utilising the old cinema building. Killed off by the arrival of Waitrose.

[rachel t]

Somerfiled became Morrisons.

Morrisons are Leeds based, therefore Northern, therefore questionable.

Morrisons are not Leeds based, they started in Rawson Market in Bradford & their headquarters are still in the city.

Asda is Leeds based.

I think in my granns local co-op in Bradford became a fine fare then went back to being branded a co-op until it closed last year. I used to have the job of sticking the co-op stamps in the book I seem to remember the 5's being blue & the 20's being blue & pink

The extint supermarket which I remember when growing up in Hull where Goodfellows & Jacksons dont think they existed outside Hull & East Yorkshire, think goodfellows was the larger stores, they were taken over by sainsburys.

[mcshroom]

Somerfiled became Morrisons.

Morrisons are Leeds based, therefore Northern, therefore questionable.

Somerfield was Gateway and then was was bought by The Coop. Morrisons bought Safeway which is when they actually became a national chain as Safeway were bigger than Morrisons at the time.

One I remember was Hillards in Rotherham. They were bought out by Tesco who took over the shop, and have now closed that one as it was on an island
 between the river and the canal, so couldn't expand. They've built a new one on the other side of the town centre.

Another unusual one I remember was Brian Ford's in Barnstaple. My mum always wanted to go there when we went to visit my Grandma and Grandad. It was sort of half way between a supermarket and a cash and carry. Unfortunately that one closed a few years ago to make way for yet another Tesco

We used to have a Symco near our Primary school, which is now a Bowling Alley/Health Spa, and our local independent 'Dishmond's' was bought out by the Coop while I was at University. All the locals still refer to it as Dishy's.

[ian]

God, I hate modern supermarkets. Aircraft hanger-sized soul vacuums. You can feel the pull before you even get through the door. If I had my way, the murders would start in the car park and escalate from there.

Sainsbury's – looks like it's trying and really not doing a good job of being posh, like they've dressed a turd in a teeny turd-sized suit and they're really proud about it.

Tesco – primary coloured place for people with mental health issues. Everyone looks like they're on industrial doses of haloperidol.

Asda – Walmart without the gun section, and judging by the customers you know why.

M&S Foodhall – ever wanted to shrinkwrap a panda? So did they. Then put it in a box.

Morrisons – you always feel there should be more pies. Even the uniforms are the colour of gravy.

Aldi – all the convenience of an East German convenience store c1981.

Lidl – the shopping equivalent of self-flagellation. And you don't have to take your clothes off first. Though many of their customers do.

Co-op – as I used to work there, I find myself facing up their displays for them and rotating stock. I think I was programmed.

Waitrose – worth it to fuck with the Daily Mail readers. You expect to find Prince Charles's gurning head in the frozen food section. Duchy certified.

Waitrose is the best of the bunch, mostly because they're not entirely proud to shout sawdust and cat fur, two for one, and only £1.99.

The grocery store near me (Big Y, no I don't know either) in the US had aisles long enough to land the space shuttle down. I swear one of them was just bagels. A hundred different brands of the same bagel. And bagels are mostly the doughy equivalent of a donkey's ringpiece.

[hellymedic]

The Golders Green Road Sainsbury's of my youth was closed on Mondays, like most butchers of the time were.

They had separate counters at which you would need to pay, before progressing to the next type of foodstuff.

[Jurek]

The Golders Green Road Sainsbury's of my youth was closed on Mondays, like most butchers of the time were.

They had separate counters at which you would need to pay, before progressing to the next type of foodstuff.

Nobody killed things over the weekend / sabbath.
I think the same applies to not buying anything from a fishmongers on a Monday...

[Torslanda]

Thank you, Ian. I am *SO* nicking that...!

[Deano]

Somerfiled became Morrisons.

Morrisons are Leeds based, therefore Northern, therefore questionable.

Bradford, not Leeds.

[Cudzoziemiec]

primary coloured place for people with mental health issues. Everyone looks like they're on industrial doses of haloperidol.

This applies to them all. Supermarkets are the cause of it. Even Waitrose.

[rogerzilla]

Waitrose is full of rude people who barge past you and tut theatrically.

Sainsbury's is generally OK but you get the odd senior with dementia staring at baked beans all day and a few pikey builders swearing loudly into their mobiles.

Tesco is like Night Of The Living Dead except all the zombies are obese.

Asda is full of orange-hued women, men wearing baseball caps, and screaming kids, so Swindon average.

The Co-Op in Old Town is full of people who may or may not actually have died ten years ago.

[geraldc]

In London we have the glory that is Wholefoods. I like shopping there, but I know in my soul there's something wrong about it. They sell that same brand of pita bread that I can get at my local ethnic store at 4 bags for £1, at £1.50 a bag. Then again the closest branch to me is on High St Ken. The young royals however shop at the Waitrose a bit further down the road.
In my little area of West London, Waitrose has a kosher section, Tescos had a Polish aisle and Morrisons had a halal section (it's since closed and was turned into a Lidl). I did wonder how they decided which branches of which supermarkets had the various ethnic/religious sections.

[madcow]

Hinton's in Cockerton. Now a small Co-Op, but it felt big at the time.

Hintons- you have a good memory.
Was there a Walter Wilson store in Darlo? I believe that was a small chain.
Their strapline was "WW the smiling service store".

[Jaded]

The grocery store near me (Big Y, no I don't know either) in the US had aisles long enough to land the space shuttle down. I swear one of them was just bagels. A hundred different brands of the same bagel. And bagels are mostly the doughy equivalent of a donkey's ringpiece.

This description reminded me of this

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7iMjFoT7yWE

[FifeingEejit]

In my little area of West London, Waitrose has a kosher section, Tescos had a Polish aisle and Morrisons had a halal section (it's since closed and was turned into a Lidl). I did wonder how they decided which branches of which supermarkets had the various ethnic/religious sections.

They put a lot of effort into knowing their customers, one of the Tesco metros in Dundee has an Irish shelf presumably due to Dundee being popular with Irish students.

Used to be able to get Irish Market Cadbury items long discontinued in the UK market like mint crisp, and also Tayto crisps and Club soft drinks.

It's a much reduced selection there now sadly, the other stores have a mix of east-central european products.
Always worth a look for something new and interesting.

I keep meaning to go into the sklep near work to see what interesting stuff I can find.

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

[MikeFromLFE]

When we moved to Cambridgeshire in the late 70s there was what we considered to be a huge supermarket/cash&carry called Beehive somewhere near March. I think it might have been a co-op spin off. It was a real treat to go and stock up on food from there.

Upthread someone (CBA to look) mentioned the limited choice in Aldi - this was my saviour when I had severe anxiety and couldn't cope with 83 types of baked beans in Tesco.

Takeover madness had resulted in a local village having two big co-op supermarkets opposite each other, one an original, always been Midlands Co-op, and the other used to be (possibly Somerfield) Central England Co-op.

When I was a child in Harringay in the 1960s we had a Tesco the size of a postage stamp in Green Lanes -it was very modern!

[pcolbeck]

Jacksons made it as far as North Yorkshire. There was one in York and until a few years ago one in Malton.
Hillards in York was the first supermarket I remember. It was a place of wonder when it opened, seemed huge. Then an Asda opened and dwarfed it.

[Cudzoziemiec]

The grocery store near me (Big Y, no I don't know either) in the US had aisles long enough to land the space shuttle down. I swear one of them was just bagels. A hundred different brands of the same bagel. And bagels are mostly the doughy equivalent of a donkey's ringpiece.

This description reminded me of this

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7iMjFoT7yWE

And that reminded me of something in connection with this:

Upthread someone (CBA to look) mentioned the limited choice in Aldi - this was my saviour when I had severe anxiety and couldn't cope with 83 types of baked beans in Tesco.

One of my mum's friends had some sort of musical trip to Leningrad as it still was, made friends with a Russian called Irena and invited her back here. When she arrived, her first visit to a Western supermarket was somewhat daunting. Firstly, there is a sign on the door that says Visa. She'd spent so much time and effort (and probably money) getting her visa to leave the USSR and visit the UK, did she need another one for specially for this shop? What was so special? Or did they just want to check her visa before allowing her to buy anything? And then the shelves and variety: how did anyone ever know what to buy?