The Independent Edition

    I try to gather my stores into groups that make sense geographically, but in this case the only thing I could come up with is stores clustered around the interstate, route 276, between Morrisville and Audubon! We will be starting on the eastern side in Morrisville and making stops in Fairless Hills, Bristol, Bensalem, Feasterville-Trevose, Horsham, Dresher, Ambler, Lafayette Hill, Conshohocken, Norristown, West Norriton, and Audubon. It's a lot of stops, so we'll be spending a little more than a month passing through this area. It's a total distance from east to west of roughly 40 miles so it's not too long but it is a significant enough distance that we will be moving from Philadelphia suburbs to the beginning of more rural areas to the west of Philadelphia. And once we're done with this, we'll be on to the Lancaster area! Tomorrow, we begin here on The Independent Edition for the first post.

O'Neill's Food Market Owner: Mike O'Neill Opened:  1981 Cooperative:  none Location:  347 N Easton Rd, Glenside, PA Photographed:  July 22, 2021 Glenside is a quaint small community within Cheltenham Township, with a population of around 7700. It's not particularly well-known, although it is considered one of the best places to live in PA. If anything, it's known for the Keswick Theatre -- located directly behind this supermarket. And this is indeed a supermarket, despite the fact that it's only 6000 square feet. I'm also willing to guess that there's a fair number of Irish and British people here, given the name of the Keswick Theatre, the Tudor style buildings on the main streets, and, well, the O'Neill's Food Market. We'll see that there is an Irish and British food section here. But we begin with the produce department, which takes up the first aisle before transitioning into prepared foods. Deli, meat, and Irish foods line the back wal...

      We are moving out from Philadelphia into lower Montgomery County! The space between the Philadelphia area and the Allentown area (the Lehigh Valley) is mostly filled by Bucks and Montgomery counties. We are beginning with a look at the southern part of Montgomery County with Elkins Park and Cheltenham/Wyncote right on the Philadelphia border, then moving north to Glenside and Jenkintown. This is a pretty short group, so we're going to spend two weeks in this area before beginning to head west farther into Pennsylvania. On Monday, we're going to see an Asian supermarket over on  The Market Report , so head over there to check it out!

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...