Return with us to Iowa City of 1933. Back in the 1980’s, when Irving Weber wrote his story on this subject, he believed there were 41 different grocers bidding for your business. Our deeper dive finds that there were actually 50 neighborhood stores, and that today, while half (25) of the buildings still stand, there’s only one that’s still functioning as a traditional grocery store.
Wanna guess what grocery store still survives all these years later?
READ MORE ABOUT THIS IOWA STORY HERE
Did you know? is an Our Iowa Heritage blog series that offers you a little bit of Iowa trivia from a large selection of stories on our website. Subscribe to this FREE blog and you’ll get a new email from us every day.
Join us for Our Iowa Heritage blog posts.
Learn some historical facts about Iowa City, Johnson County, or Eastern Iowa.
Amaze your friends.
This story brought back childhood memories of Ben Whitebook’s, Koza and McCollister, Gump’s Good Grocery, the store on South Summit near the Rock Island Railroad bridge, Hummer’s, A&P, and even Piggly Wiggly. I remember, incorrectly it appears, Piggly Wiggly on the east side of Dubuque St between Washington St and Iowa Ave. There is one store, National Tea Co, that seems to have missed the list. It was located on the west side of Clinton St between Washington and College Streets. In the olden days, my Grandmother would pickup the phone in the morning, call Whitebook’s to place her grocery order, and it would be delivered in the afternoon; no extra charge and no tips expected, as far as I know. Other grocers used this same service.
love these memories David. I did some checking – the National Tea Co. opened (according to Press Citizen) on Aug 6, 1936 at 131 S. Dubuque ( replacing Red Ball) so that’s why Weber didn’t list it in 1933. Isn’t it amazing the “service” provided for customers! WOW!
Hey David – your “remembrances” made me do some more checking on Piggly Wiggly. So they opened 109 E College in 1929, and opened a second store at 2 S. Dubuque in 1930. Both went belly-up by 1933, selling out to Self Serve. In 1934 – a new ownership team from Marshalltown re-opened Piggly Wiggly at 20-22 S. Dubuque and had a 7 year run – but had a hard time convincing folks they weren’t the “old” Piggly Wiggly – which must have had some unhappy customers. So it turns out your Dubuque Street memories are right!