I figured it was time for another gallery of old Michigan grocers...you know, the ones that had that small town charm. Back from the late 1800s to the 1950s, small town grocery store visits were eventful and fun.

Kids especially would walk in and be faced with all sorts of sweets, confections, and fun stuff that mom always refused to buy us...and now many of these goodies aren't even around any more:

Big Time candy bars, Nestle's Triple Decker Bar, Nehi grape pop and cream soda, Sputnik bubble gum, Teem lemon-lime pop, fruit pies that were as big as your hand and twice as thick for a dime, and the snack list goes on.

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Then there were the cheap toys: balsa wood planes, popguns, paddle balls, Super Balls, endless comic books, teenager and monster magazines, windup toys, hit records of the day...oh yeah. Grocers were fun for kids. Lotsa time was spent ogling and drooling over the goodies for kids.

And then there were the adults. What fun could THEY ever have in a grocery store?

Mostly running into a neighbor and gabbing while the kids ran through the store...but adults dug shopping, too, just in a different way.

The older grocers from over a hundred years ago stir up images of lots of wood floors, dark corners with bad lighting, pickle barrel, checkerboard on top of a cracker barrel, potbelly stove, lots of canned goods, bulk grains, and a clerk behind the counter wearing an apron...yeah, like Sam Drucker.

I do miss our old smalltown grocers...if you do too, or if your curiosity is peaked, take a look at around fifty more old time grocers from throughout Michigan in the gallery below...

More Old Michigan Grocers: 1800s-1950s

MORE VINTAGE MICHIGAN:

Roadside Stands and Farmers Markets, 1900-1950

Michigan Carpenters, 1890s-1920s

Plank Roads

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