The Market Report

In fact, why don't you take your pick from a wide selection of old supermarket baskets here at the PTA Thrift Shop at 125 W Main St, Carrboro, NC? Actually, these generally look pretty recent, with the possible exception of the light blue Mutual Drug basket in the left stack. Thrift stores are often a great place to find old supermarket items like baskets or carts. And practically-new Joseph A. Bank suits for $8 (or maybe I just get lucky!).

We're back in North Carolina for one more Snapshot today. The Little Burma Asian Market, as seen above, is located at 110 W Main St, Carrboro, NC. A Google review notes that, although the store is small, it carries "a large variety of Asian seafood, veggies/legumes, spices, beverages, candies, noodles, and other staples".

Let's return to downtown Carrboro for a little while to take a look at the Harris Teeter grocery store in the center of downtown. It's much larger than Weaver Street, and also more mainstream. Harris Teeter, a Kroger-owned banner, tends to lean upscale. This positioning works well in a town like Carrboro. Harris Teeter seems to be quite popular. It's at least part of a very popular strip mall. I'm not too sure about the layout here, as I only had enough time to grab a few pictures inside. Anyone been here? It certainly looks like a beautiful store. The store is located at 310 N Greensboro St, Carrboro, NC.

Quick jump across the street from Monday's post to a property that looks like it could have housed a 1970s-era supermarket. It's set up exactly right, with a 30,000 or so square foot building and a large parking lot. This location is the bottom star. Image from Google Maps. From the parking garage behind the building, we can get an overview of where it is... A look at the building from the neighboring parking garage. Maybe the supermarket, if there was one, was in the lighter roof section. Moving back to ground level, we can see that the building is now subdivided.  A large section is taken up by The ArtsCenter. It definitely has a distinctly retail feeling, but I don't know that it was a supermarket. I stayed in the hotel immediately next door to this property, so every time I walked through, I took another picture! Obviously the facade could have been changed, but even the metal siding looks like a 70s supermarket.

For today's Snapshot, we're moving literally two doors down from Friday's Surplus Sid's , from 309 to 305 E Main St. This location is the center star. Image from Google Maps. This building struck me as a 1940s supermarket, similar in style to the former Acme in Union we saw a while ago. Today it is an Advance Auto Parts store, and it previously operated as a CarQuest Auto Parts. For some reason this reminds me of an early Kroger. Based on absolutely nothing, of course, except a minimal knowledge of Kroger's current operations. Even the windows along the side of the store look like a supermarket's. From here especially, doesn't that look like it could be a grocery store? Can anyone confirm this, or is there anyone else out there who also thinks this is a former grocery store?

About a month ago, we were down in Carrboro, NC looking at the Weaver Street cooperative food store. I took photos of a few other buildings in town that seemed like former grocery stores to me, but other than my impressions, I have no reason to believe they ever were. This location is the top right star. Image from Google Maps. This particular building looked to me like a 1920s-era food store, maybe a general store. It's almost definitely a 1920s-era building. The building with the white facade is reminiscent of grocery/ general stores of the 1920s, don't you think? Especially with the higher center section on the facade. The awning is also the right style, although obviously replaced. The building, which is located at 309 E Main St, is now Surplus Sid's, a junk military surplus, antique, and general merchandise store. Inside, it's hard to tell what it may have been in the past.

OK, now for something really different. We've been seeing a lot of smaller independent stores in suburban and urban locations of northern New Jersey for the past few weeks. How about jumping down to a small town in North Carolina for a change? Image from Google Maps. In the small but upscale town of Carrboro, NC, there is a grocery cooperative store. But it's not like most of the coops we are familiar with. Instead of an association of independent grocers, it's actually a community-owned grocery store. There are a few like this in our area, but Weaver Street Market has grown to three locations. We're going to take a look at the original one, the store actually on Weaver Street in Carrboro. Weaver Street is a very community-centered store, which I love. It's part of a development in the center of Carrboro, and seems to be largely patronized by pedestrians and locals. There's a large outdoor public space in front of the store, with tables and bench...