20 Things Your Favorite Stores Looked Like 50 Years Ago
Step into a time machine and explore what shopping looked like 50 years ago when department stores reigned supreme, supermarkets felt revolutionary, and discount chains like Kmart and Woolworths turned everyday errands into nostalgic adventures.
- Alyana Aguja
- 6 min read
Half a century ago, shopping was a very different world, with crowded department stores, thriving five-and-dime stores, and supermarkets that were only just starting to adopt modern amenities. Iconic chains such as Sears, Woolworths, and Kmart defined the way Americans shopped, providing everything from appliances to candy counters, while supermarkets such as A&P and Kroger brought new innovations such as barcode scanners. This age of shopping was characterized by its face-to-face appeal, family trips to the mall, and a culture of shopping that was more intimate, years before the advent of e-commerce shifted everything.
1. Sears: The One-Stop Retailing Colossus
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Sears was in its heyday in 1975, selling everything from refrigerators to socks and even houses via its iconic catalog. The malls were gigantic, usually anchored by shopping malls with bright fluorescent lights and lengthy aisles of goods. Many featured in-store candy counters, where children could get a bag of warm roasted nuts while parents shopped.
2. Kmart: The Origin of the Blue Light Special
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Kmart was among the destination discount stores, with its now-famous “Blue Light Specials” making shopping an adventure. The stores featured expansive aisles, lofty shelves filled with affordable products, and a cafeteria offering inexpensive, popular meals such as the “Kmart submarine sandwich.” The company grew fast, with almost 1,000 locations nationwide by the mid-’70s.
3. Woolworths: The Dime Store Legacy
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Woolworths was a powerful five-and-dime, packed with bargains such as toys, household goods, and mini electronics. Most offered a lunch counter where shoppers could stop and eat, usually renowned for their grilled cheese sandwiches and sodas. By 1975, discount chains Kmart and Walmart had begun eroding their dominance.
4. A&P: The Supermarket King
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The Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P) was America’s biggest grocery chain, with thousands of outlets. Its stores had a no-frills design with slim aisles filled with A&P’s house-label products such as Ann Page and Eight O’Clock Coffee. Competition from newer, bigger supermarkets like Kroger and Safeway began cutting into its dominance in the mid-’70s.
5. RadioShack: The Electronics Hobbyist’s Paradise
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RadioShack was the destination for tinkerers, selling radios, wires, and components of early home computers. The stores were compact, filled with rows of gadgets, and had a faint smell of solder and plastic. With the popularity of CB radios during the ’70s, RadioShack rode the wave, becoming a meeting place for truckers and radio buffs.
6. JCPenney: The Department Store for Middle America
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In the 1970s, JC Penney was a middle-of-the-line department store located in malls and downtowns nationwide. The stores featured bright red signs, waxed floors, and large clothing departments serving families. It also carried appliances and furniture, making it a one-stop destination for home needs.
7. Montgomery Ward: A Fading Giant
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Montgomery Ward, Sears’ greatest competitor in years past, remained a retailing giant in 1975. They were giant, box-shaped buildings with department-store designs selling apparel, appliances, and household furnishings. However, Wards refused to change with the times, and its deterioration was already well underway.
8. Kroger: The Neighborhood Supermarket
Image from The Kroger Co.
Kroger was among the first grocery store chains to install computerized checkout systems during the ’70s. The stores had tile floors, long aisles lined with cans, and meat counters where orders were wrapped in brown paper by butchers. Most Kroger stores were still smaller than the giant supermarkets that would come to characterize the 1980s.
9. Walmart: The Discount Underdog
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Walmart was growing rapidly in rural America but was not yet the retail giant it is now. The stores were plain, no-frills, and discount-oriented, with merchandise piled high on warehouse-style shelves. Sam Walton’s low-price, high-volume philosophy was only beginning to revolutionize how retailers did business.
10. Toys “R” Us: The Ultimate Toy Wonderland
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In 1975, Toys “R” Us was the only stand-alone toy superstore and kids’ dreamland. Towering shelves loaded with board games, action figures, and bicycles filled the stores with the feel of a giant playroom. The store mascot, Geoffrey the Giraffe, was already a familiar image in advertising.
11. Ben Franklin Stores: The Small-Town Variety Shop
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Ben Franklin was a chain of five-and-dimes, kind of like Woolworths but located in more rural towns. It retailed craft materials, greeting cards, and candy from an old-fashioned, mom-and-pop-type ambiance. The pine floors and aisle-long shelves added a nostalgic look to these places.
12. Piggly Wiggly: The Self-Serve Pioneer
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Piggly Wiggly was still going strong in the 1970s, offering a distinct self-service grocery shopping experience. The stores had bright signage, narrow aisles, and checkout lanes with conveyor belts, which were still a relatively new concept. Many locations had green and yellow branding, giving them a cheerful but old-fashioned feel.
13. Safeway: The Expanding Supermarket Chain
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Safeway was one of the newer supermarket chains in 1975. Its bigger stores offered a wider product selection, including fresh bakery departments and in-store butcher counters. By the mid-1970s, Safeway had also begun testing barcode scanners.
14. Thrifty Drug Stores: The Ice Cream Connection
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Thrifty was a well-known West Coast drugstore chain with its signature Thrifty Ice Cream counters. The stores were small but stocked everything from medicine to toys and cosmetics. Most customers still recall fondly the cylinder-shaped ice cream scoops for cones.
15. Zayre: The Budget Department Store
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Zayre was a discount department store like Kmart but with a bit more trendy atmosphere. It was famous for cheaply priced clothing, home furnishings, and electronics. By the late ’70s, though, it was fighting against larger rivals such as Walmart.
16. Winn-Dixie: The Southern Supermarket Staple
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Winn-Dixie was the South’s best-known grocery chain, sporting bold red and white signage. Its shopping centers featured vintage checkout lanes operated by hand-operated cash registers. The butcher shop in the meat department was a real crowd-pleaser, offering upscale cuts of meat and old-fashioned butcher service.
17. Payless ShoeSource: Affordable and Cheerful Footwear
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Payless shops in the 1970s were plain, with shoeboxes stacked high against the walls. The shops were warehouse-like, where shoppers could walk around and pick up their sizes. Self-service was a new idea then, which assisted in keeping costs low.
18. Alfa Beta: The California Grocery Chain
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Alfa Beta was a popular supermarket chain in California, named after its “alphabetical” store arrangement of groceries. Its traditional supermarket appearance included fluorescent lighting, tile floors, and spacious aisles filled with canned products. The business later merged with Lucky and eventually Albertsons.
19. The Limited: Fast Fashion Before It Was Cool
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The Limited was a hip women’s apparel chain for young professional women. It was primarily located in malls, which were upscale for their era and featured rack displays of stylish clothes in on-season hues. One of the pioneering retailers in concentrating on rapid-revenue turnaround style trends, the company pioneered upscale retail space allocation for mass fashion brands.
20. B. Dalton Bookseller: The Mall Bookstore
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B. Dalton was among the top chains of bookstores in the 1970s, located within malls and shopping centers. The store offered a warm, library-like setting with bookshelves against the walls and paperback bestsellers piled at the checkout. The advent of giant-box bookstores such as Barnes & Noble and Borders ultimately caused it to shut down.