Waxing nostalgic, is food procurement permitted here?

[bucolic_frolic]

I just don't remember how food was packaged. I recall a meat counter at a small strip mall store, with wooden floors and one glass front display, dimly lit. They sold a few fish, and some other proteins. It must have been packaged in waxed paper. This about 1965. I don't think it was an A&P, which was down the sidewalk a few stores, but it could have been. The A&P was standardized footprint to a great extent, wood floors, 2-3 checkouts, high tin ceilings, fresh ground coffee. Purple price stamps on each item. The checkout slides were wooden, you just pushed the food along. When did we graduate to styrofoam trays? I don't recall how chicken and beef were packaged in the 1970s. I think fresh fish was often wrapped in white wax paper in the 80s, 90s, then on to plastic. There wasn't as much frozen food back then. Vegetable in white cardboard cartons, wrapped in a label and glued; a few of those operations still persist today, and there are a few manufacturers with cardboard packaging in frozen foods - butternut squash, the Michelina's line for example. Too much plastic, not enough food.

[Jilly_in_VA]

1. Let me think

I used to ship at a neighborhood market, the Sunshine Supermarket, in the early 1970s, and I don't recall it being as rustic as you describe. We did get our meat from the meat counter where it was displayed and you could pick out exactly which piece you wanted, and I recall it being wrapped in "butcher paper" which was white but waxed on one side. I loved our butcher, who also owned the market. His name was I.J. "Jack" Schvid. He is long gone now, and may his afterlife be as happy as he made his customers. After we moved, we shopped at another neighborhood market, Len's Super Val-U. It was a little bigger, but it boasted an in-store bakery. I do remember that this store was probably the first one I shopped at that had its meat wrapped in plastic wrap on styrofoam trays. We rarely went there ear;y in the day though, and for one specific reason---we learned from a friend that the baker had fresh hot pumpernickel bread and would sell it to you unsliced if you went there late at night when he was taking it out of the oven. There is nothing better than fresh hot pumpernickel, slathered with butter!I can still taste that....

[surrealAmerican]

2. I"m pretty sure the styrofoam trays were used for supermarket meats by the 1970s.

It was one of the reasons my mother wouldn't buy meat at the supermarket. She figured the were hiding the unappetizing side with that styrofoam, We got meat at a butcher shop, where you could see the whole thing before they wrapped in paper.

[Marthe48]

3. My parents had a grocery store

From 1949 to 1974, when my dad passed away. In the early years, the store was a combination grocery and locker. There was a big walk-in freezer lined with metal bins. People could rent them to store their frozen foods. They were probably the size of average chest freezers. Locker were popular right after WWII, and then people started buying freezers for the home.

The vegetables were arranged unwrapped.

The meat and cheese were displayed in a refrigerated case, white enamel with a sloped glass front. We used metal scoops to get the amount of ground meat a customer wanted. There were thin square sheets of waxed paper we used to line a piece of wrapping paper. The wrapping paper was lightly waxed brown paper for fresh meat, heavily waxed white paper for freezer orders. Dad had masking tape that stuck to the paper. We all learned 2 ways to wrap-one way for fresh and another way for the freezer orders. There was an analog meat scale right behind the case. The dial was double-sided, so we could see the weight and the customer could, too. The scales were examined by a certified tech on a regular basis.

We had grocery carts, no seat for babies. The register had rows of push buttons, and we learned dollars and cents and how to ring people up. The highest combination of numbers was 99.99. There was a duplicate tape that Dad took home daily, so Mom could check out the cash. There counter was lined with black linoleum, and didn't move. We had 2 checkouts. Early days, Dad had several employees and the 2nd register was often running so we didn't get a line. We had paper shopping bags. We bagged the order and offered carry out to the cars. We'd call out "carry out" if someone asked.

[bucolic_frolic]

4. Thanks for the piece of history!

I do recall white enamel with sloped glass front. That part was well-lit, not so much the rest of the store.

I remember the first Shop-Rite in town that opened in an old Carvel Ice Cream store that had become a used car dealership.

Here's a period piece from one in NJ:

https://www.mycentraljersey.com/story/news/local/hunterdon-county/2018/05/26/shoprite-flemington-60th-anniversary-joseph-colalillo/628907002/

For those not in the know, Shop-Rite is a regional chain begun about 1960.