The Independent Edition

Weavers Way Co-Op Owner: cooperatively owned Opened:  2010 Cooperative:  none Location:  8424 Germantown Ave, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, PA Photographed:  July 22, 2021 It's time for our last Philadelphia store! This little 6000 square foot store (or so) is located right in the heart of the quaint, historical Chestnut Hill neighborhood on Germantown Avenue. It's the second location of Weavers Way that we've seen, with the first a little over 2 miles south in Mount Airy .  It's appropriate, too, since that was the first Weavers Way to open and this was the second. The third, out in Ambler, is roughly 5 and a half miles north and we'll be seeing that soon. There's a fourth in Philadelphia on the way, too. The grocery store takes up this storefront, which is really two storefronts combined, and it used to be Caruso's Market until around 2009. I don't really know anything about Caruso's, so let's take a look at Weavers Way. Much like the Mount Air

Bishop's Supermarket Owner: Bill Bishop Opened:  1989 in current location Cooperative:  IGA (Retail Marketing Group) Location:  431 US-22, Whitehouse Station, Readington, NJ Photographed:  August 6, 2022 We return to Bishop's Supermarket in Readington, an exceptionally well-run independent store on route 22 about 30 miles west of Newark. This was my third time returning to the store, and each time I liked the store a little bit better. I did a full shopping here in August and was thoroughly impressed with the selection and quality. Here's my original tour. We see a reset here in the produce department, and generally around the perimeter. There's new flooring and fixtures, with the cases on the left side having been painted and the right side cases having been replaced. Note that the new cases on the right have doors. The only strange thing was that the track lighting on the ceiling here is not functional, and I'm not sure why. Then again, if you look at my 2020 pi

Weavers Way Co-Op Owner: cooperatively owned Opened:  1973 Cooperative:  none Location:  559 Carpenter Ln, Mount Airy, Philadelphia, PA Photographed:  July 2021 Our first stop of two here in Mount Airy is absolutely unique! The Weavers Way Co-Op is a longtime Philadelphia natural foods coop store, and this is the original location. Well, kind of -- it was originally at 555 Carpenter Lane , and what we're looking at is 557-559. The store has moved a few times within a few neighboring buildings, but I won't explain the full history in this post. Weavers Way has on its own website an informative -- and entertaining -- history of the cooperative grocery store . Now that you've read all about Weavers Way, it's time to see our first Weavers Way store. It's a little hard to pin down the exact size of the store, but I'd estimate it's around 3000 square feet. That space is divided in many ways, though. There are basically three rooms, if I remember correctly (and it

Chelten Market IGA Owner: Young Kim Opened:  2017 Cooperative:  IGA Location:  176 W Chelten Ave, Germantown, Philadelphia, PA Photographed:  July 2021 Fans of Pathmark seem to have largely missed the Chelten Market IGA, which is as good as we're going to get of a time capsule of 1990s Pathmark at this point. It's also a very pleasant neighborhood supermarket. Let's review the history of this store before we take a tour. The 33,000 square foot building was built (presumably slightly smaller) by Food Fair in the 1960s or so. In Food Fair's 1979 bankruptcy, A&P acquired this store, later converting it to SuperFresh in 1982. The SuperFresh had a fire around 1995, and when SuperFresh decided not to reopen the store, Pathmark renovated the building and opened. Pathmark closed in 2016, and after some light renovation, the Chelten Market IGA opened the following year. Most of that history comes, as usual, from JoshAustin610 . It's very obvious that not too much has be