Original Grocery Tenant: A&P
Address: 194 North St, Bennington, VT
Opened: ca. 1960
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Just across from yesterday's former Grand Union is this former A&P. Behind all these multiple generations of facades, there's actually an A&P centennial store buried, constructed around 1960 at about 11,000 square feet. The space was later expanded (possibly in the 1970s) to around 30,000 square feet, though I'm not certain whether A&P occupied the whole building. Eventually, this store came under A&P's WEO discount brand before closing, though I'm not sure exactly when.
You can get a little bit of a sense of the centennial facade peeking through here, but it's much more apparent in aerial photographs. You can also see a little from the back, which has more recently gotten a stucco-type facade similar to what's now on the front. If I had to guess, I would say the shingled awning is likely left over from A&P in the 1970s.
The building is around 15,000 square feet and was constructed around the late 1950s, so it's very much in line with what I'd expect from a grocery store. I do know that it had a variety of non-grocery occupants, including a hardware store and the gym and appliance store that are currently in it.
Address: 194 North St, Bennington, VT
Opened: ca. 1960
Closed: unknown
Later Tenants: assorted non-grocery tenants
Photographed: August 8, 2021
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Just around the corner from this former A&P is another possible former supermarket, though I don't recognize it and wasn't able to find any solid evidence online that this was ever a grocery store.
Original Grocery Tenant: unknown
Address: 120 Depot St, Bennington, VT
Opened: unknown
Address: 120 Depot St, Bennington, VT
Opened: unknown
Closed: unknown
Later Tenants: assorted non-grocery tenants
Photographed: August 8, 2021
Tomorrow is one more former supermarket here in Bennington before we go back to seeing the present-day grocers!
Shingled awnings were a 1970s cliche, although they began to appear in the mid-to-late 60s. The other store seems likely to have been a First National, but apparently their store in Bennington was in a plaza with Grant's.
ReplyDeleteNever even thought of this one being a store, as it had been Brooks (before their sale to Rite Aid then Walgreens buying many of those as happened here). And Rite Aid kept this one over their former store in with Hannaford further up.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, that other store (120 Depot) at one point had an Eckerd - one of the odd setups where they co-existed with Brooks before Jean Couteau bought both brands and closed the Eckerd spot.