The Independent Edition

Riccardo's IGA Owner: Rocco Riccardo Opened:  ca. 2010 in this location, 1968 previously Cooperative:  IGA Location:  1219 Wheeler Ave, Dunmore, PA Photographed:  December 18, 2019 We're east of downtown Scranton here in Dunmore, a midsized town of 13,000 that directly borders Scranton. We're going to tour the roughly 44,000 square foot Riccardo's IGA, which opened here around 2010 in what appears to have been a new-build location. Previously, they were just to the north in a roughly 22,000 square foot location now used for offices for a nonprofit ( here's a look at that building when it was still a supermarket). The store was a ShurSave until around 2017, when they left the ShurSave coop and joined IGA. (This is the only IGA in the Wyoming Valley, although oddly it does not appear on the IGA website. The circular for this week both uses the IGA logo and advertises IGA brand products.) Here's a look across the front-end if we look to the left when we enter. F...

Vitali's Market Owner: Margaret Vitali Opened:  1956 Cooperative:  none Location:  1711 Jackson St, West Scranton, Scranton, PA Photographed:  December 22, 2018 Hope you had a great weekend! Now we're in West Scranton for a look at Vitali's Market! This grocery store opened in 1956 and appears to still occupy the same roughly 5,000 square foot space they did on opening day. In 1950, Vitali's opened as part of the Banner Food Stores cooperative at 1309 Swetland St here in Scranton, then either moved or opened a second location here at 1711 Jackson, and by the 1970s had a second location at 210 E Drinker St in Dunmore . All these years later, Vitali's is still going strong, a fully-stocked almost-supermarket with a lot of selection packed into a very small store. I believe these days they're independent and supplied by C&S with the Best Yet brand. In the first aisle, we have HABA/nonfoods, baked goods, and frozen foods. Well, not all of the baked goods. More...

Super Natural Produce Owner: Leopoldo Sanchez Opened:  2016 Cooperative:  Krasdale Foods Location:  824 Pittston Ave, Scranton, PA Photographed:  December 22, 2018 Here we are at the second, newer, and larger Garcia Market location diagonally across the street from yesterday's store . This store became Super Natural Produce -- whose Reading location we saw a while ago -- in 2016. But the store goes way back, actually all the way to 1937, when it was constructed as an ACME, and its grand opening ad advertised Christmas trees for 50 cents. Or two pounds of grapes for 15 cents. This was the first "supermarket"-style ACME in the Wyoming Valley, a self-service store where customers rolled around their own shopping carts to the various departments of the store. According to the Scranton Times-Tribune, the store "represented a great leap forward...it offered convenience and things not usually found in smaller stores," but a 1995 opinion piece noted that "some pe...

  Moving on to the northern part of the Wyoming Valley! This time we're looking at stores in and around Scranton, ranging from Moosic to the southwest of the city, into the city itself, and then to the northeast of the city through Peckville, Archbald, Mayfield, Carbondale, and Forest City. It's a relatively brief survey of the area, but we'll see a fair number of stores in the time we're here which will be a little less than a month. With around 76,000 people, Scranton is the largest city in this part of Pennsylvania, and the seventh-largest in Pennsylvania overall. Like the Wilkes-Barre area, we'll be touring quite a few Gerrity's, but there are also a lot of independents in this area. Lots of exciting stuff is coming soon, starting with a Gerrity's tomorrow on The Market Report ! Also today... two special reports over in Manhattan! Wegmans - Astor Place, Manhattan, NY SuperFresh - Two Bridges, Manhattan, NY

Quinn's Market Owner: Jeff Krenitsky Opened:  2010-2022 Cooperative:  ShurSave Location:  401 Kennedy Blvd, Pittston, PA Photographed:  December 22, 2018 The Pittston location of Quinn's Market was well-documented over on Acme Style before the blog went dark, so I strongly recommend you check out their posts before we jump into our tour of this 26,000 square foot store. For a brief recap of the store's history, it was constructed in 1966 before becoming an ACME Super Saver in the 1970s, a brand it actually retained through the 90s. In 1994, it was sold to Penn Traffic and became an Insalaco's, then Bruno's ShurSave by 2006 which closed in 2008, then the third location of Quinn's ShurSave in 2010. My impression is that Bruno's and Insalaco's did little to no renovation prior to opening, and that the ACME decor may have been intact as late as 2008. Quinn's appears to be the one who changed the decor to what it was. The store closed in 2022 but the p...