TOUR: Dave's Super Duper - Honesdale, PA

Dave's Super Duper
Owner: Dave Flederbach

Opened: 1985 (Dave's Foodtown 2017-2018)

Cooperative: none
Location: 200 Willow Ave, Honesdale, PA

Photographed: December 22, 2018

Welcome to Dave's Super Duper in Honesdale! It appears that Super Duper was once a cooperative of supermarkets ranging from Ohio to Pennsylvania (see here and here), but these days most of those stores have been lost. One of the very few remaining stores is here in Honesdale, PA, with other remaining locations in East Rochester, OH and Kennedy, NY, although the Super Duper cooperative has long since dissolved.

In fact, Dave's Super Duper briefly actually joined another cooperative. The store became Dave's Foodtown in 2017, though oddly the store left the following year and returned to Dave's Super Duper. I'm not clear on why they joined or why they left, but by the time I got there, it had returned to its second incarnation as Super Duper. Notice, in fact, the signage on the front of the store welcoming back Super Duper. (Incidentally, don't forget that Kings in New Jersey joined Foodtown way back in 1959, then left just a few months later because customers thought the stores had been sold to a new owner. I believe it was over the summer of 1959 that Kings briefly became Foodtown.)

Produce is in the first aisle along with dairy, meats are on the back wall, deli is in the back left corner with frozen on the left side of the store.

I believe these aisle markers were installed for Super Duper 2.0, but that the decor dates probably back to the store's opening in the mid-80s. I'm not sure if this was previously another store before Dave's. The 23,000 square foot store is just to the north of the former ACME in Honesdale, now a Tractor Supply Company.

The store definitely is beginning to look outdated, but it's fully stocked and clean, so it doesn't look bad.

Interestingly enough, this store is not C&S-supplied as so many independents are in this part of the country. Instead, it's supplied by UNFI (Supervalu) with Essential Everyday and Wild Harvest.

And speaking of Essential Everyday, here's a whole lot of Essential Everyday paper goods...

The deli is a bit tucked away in the back left corner, and I don't believe there's a bakery here.

Moving into frozen foods in the last aisle...

I can't tell whether this decor has been painted or if this was the original appearance of the store.

As we see below, frozen foods continue into the front corner of the store with the checkouts beyond that.

Notice that it doesn't look like this store has gotten any major changes since it opened. The decor and fixtures mostly are all original, as far as I can tell.

Honesdale is a town of only 4400 people, but it actually has two independent supermarkets. We'll take a look at the other one in town tomorrow here on The Independent Edition!