July 1959 – A&P Grocery Expands.

***A&P Food Stores – 1859-1959 – 100th Birthday Celebration!***

It’s with great fanfare in July 1959, that A&P Food Stores – celebrating their 100th year in the food business – announces the opening of its brand-new Iowa City facility located at 700 S. Clinton Street – just one block from the Rock Island Railroad Depot.

Opening on Tuesday, July 21, 1959 – A&P relocates from downtown Iowa City (314 S. Clinton) to their new state-of-the-art facility at 700 South Clinton Street.

On July 16 & 17, 1959 (above & below), The Iowa City Press-Citizen announces the new A&P facility, giving Iowa City shoppers all the details. The new building offers 21,000 square feet – three times the size of the downtown store at 314 S. Clinton.

On July 27 and July 30, 1959, A&P ran full page ads in The Press-Citizen thanking Iowa Citians for the “grand time” at their Grand Opening of the new Early American-style A&P Super Market…

Pictured below is the A&P store manager – **William Brink**. Brink’s son, Don, tells us that the Brinks moved from Chicago to Iowa City to run the A&P in the late 1950’s, staying here until Brink was transferred to the Moline, Illinois store in 1963. When A&P started to close more Midwestern stores, the Brinks were finally moved back to Chicago in the mid-1960’s.

The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, better known as A&P, was a national chain of grocery stores that operated across the country from 1859 to 2015, with stores in Iowa City from the late 1920’s to 1975.

From 1915 through 1975, A&P was the largest grocery retailer in the United States – and, from the 1930’s until 1965, was considered, by many, as the largest U.S. retailer of any kind!

A&P was founded in 1859 as “Gilman & Company” by George Gilman, who opened a small chain of retail tea and coffee stores in New York City, and then expanded to a national mail order business. The firm grew to 70 stores by 1878; by 1900, it operated almost 400 stores. A&P grew dramatically by introducing the economy store concept in 1912, growing to 1,600 stores by 1915. After World War I, it added stores that offered meat and produce, while expanding manufacturing. In 1930, A&P reached $2.9 billion in sales ($54.6 billion today) with over 15,000 stores! In 1936, it adopted the self-serve supermarket concept and opened 400 larger stores, while phasing out many of its smaller units by 1950.

At its peak in the 1940s, A&P captured 10% of total U.S. grocery spending. Known for innovation, A&P improved consumers’ nutritional habits by making available a vast assortment of food products at much lower costs, and until 1982, A&P also was a large food manufacturer. After two bankruptcies, A&P finally closed the last of its doors in 2015.

On a personal side, my parents – George & Dixie Boller loved going to A&P here in Iowa City – making it their go-to supermarket from the time we moved here in 1966 until its closing in 1975. One of the main reasons they enjoyed shopping at A&P was the inviting aroma of A&P’s freshly-ground Eight O’Clock Coffee beans – one of the many unique food items found only at your local A&P grocery!

In the late 1950’s and 1960’s, a promotional item for retailers to use as a marketing tool were pre-printed “trading” stamps. S&H Green Stamps were wildly popular and would be given to loyal customers in return for purchases. As shoppers collected their trading stamps, they could redeem books of them (see above) for promotional products. Not wanting to be left out of the “trading stamp” craze, A&P marketed their own brand of stamps, called MacDonald Plaid Stamps (pictured above).

As we said earlier, A&P brought their first grocery store to Iowa City in the late 1920’s. By 1930, there were two downtown locations: 117 S. Clinton and 110 E. College. Eventually, A&P consolidated their two stores into a 7,000 square foot facility located at 314 S. Clinton Street, closing that store in July 1959, when their new 21,000 square foot building opened at 700 S. Clinton.

In September 1971 – with greater competition for lower-priced groceries – A&P took on a new name: A&P A-Mart (see above left), adding a second store by taking over K-Mart Foods located at 903 Hollywood Blvd. The following year – in June 1972 – A&P changed their national corporate name to A&P WEO (see above right) with the initials standing for the phrase: Where Economy Originates.

A&P WEO had “two convenient locations” (see above) from June 1972 until closing their larger location – 700 S. Clinton – in the summer of 1974.

By March 1975, A&P WEO, with more & more competition in the discount food market, continued to drop in sales, finally losing their lease at their 903 Hollywood Blvd. store, and closing, permanently, by April 1, 1975. Today, A&P’s 700 S. Clinton Street location – the long-time home of Northwest Fabrics – is owned and operated by the University of Iowa (see below)…

**A&P’s 700 S. Clinton Street Location – 1959-1974.**

A&P – while leaving Iowa City in 1975 – continued to live on in some larger markets until 2015, and thanks to YouTube, here’s a handful of A&P TV commercials from 1972 to 2003.