Wellsboro's Historical Tops

    For me, I find the Wellsboro, PA  community a fantastic place to visit. It just happens to be one of my personal favorite towns thanks in part to its historical charm and also the nearby PA Grand Canyon. So I suppose it is quite fitting that town happens to have a supermarket that also has quite the history to it. Wellsboro is also big enoungh that it is actually able to support two different supermarket chains- a Tops grocery store (the topic of this post) and a Weis supermarket on the outskirts of town.

    So I mentioned this place has history. Let's dive right into it shall we? It would seem that the original supermarket that operated here was ACME (as far as I know) as this black and white photo shows:

Picture Courtesy of Flickr user Robert Sher

ACME evidently sold this as part of a package deal to Penn Traffic in 1995. A comment on the this photo suggests that it operated as a Super Duper, but there is no photographic evidence to back that claim. Either way, the space eventually found itself under the Bi-Lo name as the linked photo shows. (And no this is no relation to the now defunct Southeastern Grocers banner)

Flash forward to 2010, and we find Tops entering the picture with their accquisition of Penn Traffic. Now that the history is covered, enjoy a look around the store.

Former Kmart #3324

 NOTE: This post comes from outside the blog's coverage area.

The community that this month's Kmart tour bring us to is the city of Roanoke. At one point, this was a town that 3 Kmart stores in its metro area.* Unfortunately, by the time I got to the area, I was only able to visit one of them- the location along Franklin Rd in the southern part of the city. For some unknown reason, Kmart updated the pet department here. The store had at this point lost its pharmacy and oddly lacked a lawaway sign. A cafe was operated at one time by the checkout lanes instead of the usual front corner. 

It would only a be a couple months after my visit that this store would follow the other locations and also call it quits. Something that I honestly expected to happen after visiting this particular store. It appears that the Kmart we are about to tour is now a self-storage facility. 

*For reference purposes, the other two Kmart stores in the greater Roanoke area were in Salem, VA (now partly Tractor Supply with the rest of the space vacant) and a location along Hershberger Rd NW that is now a BJ's Wholesale Club.