Autumn Years Spring 2023

Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, once said, “I never make a trip to the United States without visiting a supermarket. To me, they are more fascinating than any fashion salon.”

World War II brought food ration ing, and shortages were common. Fear of items not being available caused hoarding. In 1943, newspaper reports spoke of the scarcity of fresh meat; as a result, pasta, eggs, cheese and fish were being substituted for the elusive butcher department fare. By 1945, with Allied successes in the war effort, there were reports of plans to open new supermar kets after the war. A July 1945 headline noted, “Allendale is slated to get postwar food supermarket.” On July 12, 1946, for the first time since the end of the war, butter was advertised for sale from the open store shelf. Previously, it had been kept under the counter and doled out as allowed. ollowing the war, there were many newborn mouths to feed, resulting in an explosive expansion of new supermarkets. In 1951, Collier’s magazine wrote that more than three new supermarkets were opening every day in the United States, and sources say that the pace in creased in the 1960s. By 1968 in Bergen County, there were 131 supermarkets spread across 48 towns. Grand Union, like A&P, began in the 1800s as a tea THE BABY BOOM YEARS

Nite and Day Food-O-Mat.

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Nite and Day Food-O-Mat.

in 1940; by 1968, it had 10 locations in the county. The chain later took on the name Pantry Pride before going bank rupt in the 1970s. Safeway was another well-known brand. In 1947, there were 13 locations in Bergen County. To encourage sales, newspaper ads featured recipes by “Julia Lee Wright, the director of the Safeway Homemakers’ Bureau.” By October 1949, Stop & Shop opened its 12th store in the county. Located at 455 Essex Street, Hackensack, that store was the first to advertise “electric eye” doors that “open like magic as you leave the store.” Of particular note, there was “no more wrestling with doors with an arm load of packages” (which implied that the shopping carts did not leave the store). Today, there are 11 Stop & Shop stores in Bergen County. A small local chain named Honey Dew opened its first store in Teaneck on November 18, 1949. According to news reports, the shoppers emptied the

In 1905, the store advertised for a “wide awake and reliable man” to sell its prod ucts in the Hackensack and Englewood areas door-to-door. In 1929, the chain’s first New Jersey brick-and-mortar store opened in Ridgefield Park. Grand Union, in 1952, opened its corporate headquarters and flagship store in East Paterson (today’s Elmwood Park). That store, in 1958, had what the company called the “Nite and Day Food-O-Mat” installed along the front of the build ing. It was akin to the Automat, where a series of vending machines dis pensed groceries with the deposit of coins, available 24 hours a day. In 2001, a corporate shake-up resulted in Grand Union stores in Bergen County either closing or being snatched up by other brands. A well-known brand called Food Fair opened its first store in Teaneck

and coffee enterprise.

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