John's Fine Foods
Owner: John Hitchings
Opened: 1963
Cooperative: none
Location: 88 North Ave, Owego, NY
Photographed: August 2020
It seems that Red & White had a fairly large presence here in this region of New York at one point (see Branchport) but the independent stores have now gone totally independent. John's Fine Foods is one such store, a delightful 3900 square foot market to the north of downtown Owego, a very nice town.
John's, however, features a wonderful midcentury modern tower with a circular cutout including the Red & White logo! Great to see the sign remain after all these years of its affiliation gone.
This store has been one of the ones I've been meaning to get to since I first saw drpep's 2007 photo over on Flickr. I was thrilled to be able to do so this past August coming home from the Finger Lakes area.
It's another one of those stores where you enter on the right and cross to the left to beverage and dairy in the first aisle. Meat and deli runs along the back wall, with frozen foods and produce in the last aisle with two registers at the front. The best part? This store features a variety of toy trucks from a range of food stores from this area and others! I tried to get as many pictures as I could but they're high up on display shelves above the store. As a supermarket fan and an avid toy truck collector... I was thrilled.
Owego also has a Tops (which we're seeing next on The Market Report) and a Price Chopper in a former Tops, so John's is more of a convenience market and specialty butcher/deli store. That's why the selection of beverages is so large...
But look how nicely stocked they all are. So many of the small stores that are used mostly for convenience just have a little stock here and there to fill the space. Now for the butcher/deli on the back wall.
Check out those toy trucks! Loblaw's! ShopRite! ShurFine! Even John's Fine Foods!
I believe there are four aisles. This is the third.
Last aisle, looking towards the back wall of the store. A small produce department takes up that back corner. But first...
And now for a look at the front end...
That's all for John's Fine Foods! We have one more store here in Owego before we wrap up the New York portion of this group, so check it out tomorrow on The Market Report!
In addition to the toy trucks, that's a pretty neat painting of the store up by the entrance, too. Nice combination of interests for you!
ReplyDeleteYes, agreed! I like the painting too, and I wonder if the storefront here was ever wood paneling like the picture shows. Today it's definitely stucco.
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