Any American of a certain age recognizes that structure immediately, and knows exactly what should be on the peaked brick face in front:
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| That, or one of A&P's many other logos. |
A&P supermarkets had distinctive roofs, whether in town or country. You'd recognize them anywhere...
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| Excelsior Springs! |
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| Norwood, NJ! |
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| Active one back in the day |
Various chain restaurants have similar uniformity of construction, which sometimes persists long after the restaurant closes. The peerless Not Fooling Anybody site maintains a photo library of Hojos, A&Ws, Pizza Huts, and so on that have survived as other businesses but kept the original architecture. No one has made a comprehensive list of old A&Ps, although Groceteria has quite a few.
A&P was sort of the Walmart of its day; at its peak there were 15,709 stores in the U.S., much more common than the ubiquitous Carnegie libraries (a mere 1,689). Now A&P is the Ozymandius of this day, a destroyed giant whose collapse was amazing.
Sadly, tales of bad heirs, poor business judgment, blindness to competition, and inability to adapt to changing times are as ubiquitous as A&Ps at their peak. It's a pity; we were a solid A&P family for decades, and we've all had to move on, in sorrow.
But apparently those old stores were really well built, weren't they?
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