The Market Report

Original Grocery Tenant: Bottom Dollar Food, Penn Fruit previously on property Address: 1165 MacArthur Rd, Whitehall, PA Opened:  2012 Closed:  2015 Later Tenants:  subdivided Photographed:  January 8, 2021 (If you've already seen this... looks like I accidentally scheduled it for 2/7 instead of 3/7. Whoops.) Here's an interesting little store in the Lehigh Valley suburb of Whitehall, to the north of Allentown. The store was built as a 20,000 square foot Bottom Dollar Food discount supermarket in 2012, but it was actually built on the site of a former Penn Fruit which until its 2012 demolition was remarkably intact. The store, as you can see in the picture above, still has its tall Penn Fruit sign, just with some new tenants advertised on it. Plus, the trademark slope over the main entrance is present still on the AutoZone. Here's a look at the old store prior to its demolition. Note that the Rent-a-Center portion of the building is still standing. And now for som...

GIANT Food Stores Opened: 2006 Previous Tenants:  Penn Fruit (closed 1973) > Zallie's Shop n Bag (1974-1997) > Clemens (1997-2006) Location:  10 E Ridge Pk, Conshohocken, PA Photographed:  July 22, 2021 This GIANT doesn't look like such a remarkable store, right? Well, you're in for a surprise. This building was constructed in the 1950s or so as a Penn Fruit, and in the 1970s became a Zallie-owned Shop n Bag which was acquired by Clemens in the 90s. In 2006, Clemens was acquired by GIANT, which subsequently renovated the store. And from this view, where we're up at a slightly higher altitude, we can see the arched-roof Penn Fruit building remains! For an idea of the layout while we're father away here, we enter on the far left side of the storefront (see the second triangle to the left), to an expansion room holding produce on the left side, floral/pharmacy on the right side, and in the back, the beer/wine department with deli, bakery, and cheese. The meat an...

Original Tenant: Penn Fruit Address: 301 W Chelten Ave, Germantown, Philadelphia, PA Opened:  1950s Closed:  ca. 1976 Later Tenants:  ShopRite (ca. 1976-ca. 2003) > The Fresh Grocer (ca. 2003-2011) > subdivided Photographed:  July 2021 Not a great picture, but a quick shot of the former Fresh Grocer in Germantown. This store, just a block west of Chelten Market , was originally a 1950s-era Penn Fruit before being sold to some ShopRite owner in the late 70s (probably in 1976), which closed around 2003. The Fresh Grocer opened shortly thereafter and then closed in early 2011. The 33,000 square foot store was subdivided into several smaller stores, including a Dollar Tree. At the same time, Save-A-Lot built a new store behind this existing building with a roughly 17,000 square foot footprint. Interestingly enough, at least initially, the Save-A-Lot was relocating from 5753 Wayne Ave and would be, like the closed Fresh Grocer, owned by the Burns family . Interes...

Original Tenant: Penn Fruit Address: 6150 N 5th St, Olney, Philadelphia, PA Opened:  1940s Closed:  by 1979 Later Tenants:  CVS (ca. 1985- ) Photographed:  July 2021 Quick stop here just west of yesterday's H Mart . This roughly 13,000 square foot building has been a CVS since at least around 1985, and according to JoshAustin610 , it was built on the site of a demolished Penn Fruit. Looking at Historic Aerials, we can see that there's been a building here since at least 1948, but I can't find any evidence that the building was demolished at any point. In fact, there's a pretty clear progression of the building staying exactly as it is and being expanded several times. The original structure appears to be a 6100 square foot Penn Fruit with a 2400 square foot smaller store next to it. An addition of roughly 3200 square feet was built out on the other side of the property, towards the parking lot. If you look carefully, you can actually see the seam between the Penn F...

Original Tenant:  Penn Fruit Address: 5147 Frankford Ave, Frankford, Philadelphia, PA Opened:  1955 Closed:  1978 Later Tenants:  Holiday Thriftway (ca. 1979-2016) Photographed:  July 2021 There are a few supermarkets out there, current and former, that are absolute classics that every supermarket fan knows about. This is surely in the top 5 best-known current and former supermarkets in this area (maybe the east coast?). In 1955, the Penn Fruit company built a roughly 16,000 square foot arched-roof supermarket at Frankford and Pratt in Philadelphia. To them at the time, it was not a particularly remarkable location -- just another store of the type they were building across the region at the time. The Penn Fruit closed in 1978 and was replaced shortly thereafter by Holiday Thriftway, which had a few locations around Philadelphia at various times. And at some point, it was expanded to just under 28,000 square feet with an additional 6,000 square feet of retail i...