50s grocery store

While most of us grew up with supermarkets and shopping malls already existing; some of us remember the family-run grocery stores where your options were often limited. Others might even have had the chance to grow their own food, but once general stores grew bigger and became more convenient, there was no way back. Still, the consumerist lifestyle as we know it didn't happen overnight, and we got where we are now gradually.

At the grocery store in the 1950s. Lady in blue, shopping carts filled to the brim, meticulously places products.

In the mid-fifties, one of the first "new-fangled" supermarkets opened in the UK in Finchley High Road. This is purported to be a shot of the interior, although it's difficult to say for certain after the passage of so many years. If it is the Premier Supermarket, there would have been a coffee bar on the left hand side, looking from the street, where they served beverages in malamine, unbreakable cups. Caffe Nero occupies the space as at 2018.

Take a look back at the kind of aisles, counters and checkouts American shoppers used to encounter at vintage 1950s grocery stores when shopping for food, toiletries and more!

Exploring supermarket history since 1999