# Flashback to the grocery store



## Blackstone (Mar 29, 2018)

Hello Everyone,

I was wondering if anybody a little older and better equipped with memory than myself can give me an idea of what a typical American grocery store was like in the later seventies/early eighties? A grocery store by the modern definition - a Walmart, etc. I was only just alive myself and certainly not shopping.

This is for a flashback in an upcoming piece. I've done what I feel is close to exhaustive research (it's not something there seems to be much info on unfortunately) but what I'm really looking for is not an overview of the industry as a whole or anything incredibly in depth but more some idea on decor, fixtures, uniforms, the check out process, etc. Basically anything that could provide a definite clue as to the time period but not require any particularly advanced knowledge of either grocery stores or the period in question. 

I know the obvious indicator of a previous time would be the products on the shelves but in this case I can't use those - they have to be modern for the scene to work. The reason is the vision itself is part of a kind of fugue state in which the character is blending memories from their earlier life (when they used to work in a grocery store as a high school student in 1979) with the modern world in which they live and the main story is set. 

Since it is critical they don't realize they are hallucinating it is necessary that the old fashioned aspects to the store could feasibly exist today albeit in a 'retro' fashion. So I can't have old products that would not exist or magazines with Nixon on or anything as that would make the character believe they had gone back in time and they must retain the belief they are simply in an eccentric, slightly rustic grocery store in a small town...

 Sorry if this is confusing, it's a psychological thriller of sorts.

Any help appreciated. I think it's great to have a research portion on the forum!


----------



## DOGGLEBUNNI (Apr 2, 2018)

The cash register is a dead giveaway, here is one that might have been used https://www.purplewave.com/auction/080816/item/2143 
Also, those punch type labels for groceries https://www.ebay.com/itm/2-Vintage-...m=263098963397&_trksid=p2047675.c100011.m1850

The employees would probably wear some ugly polyester smocks or something, with name tags made from a dynamo label machine. The lighting would be fluorescent lights in fixtures that extended from the ceiling. The checkout lines would be slow, all prices would be punched into the cash register by hand. The "bag boy" (Not a racial term, just the name of the grocery bagger) would bag your groceries, and then offer to take them out to the car for you, and put them _in_ the car for you. It was expected that you would give him a tip. He had a special cart he would use, (I never saw a female bagger) it looked like a shelf with wheels. The entrance doors to the store had a rubber mat that was motion sensitive when you stepped on it that is what made the doors open, and the doors were not sliding doors, they swung inward and outward, there was an entry door and an exit door. The doors only operated one way, you couldn't go out the entry door. I tried it once when I was a child, much to my embarrassment. The signs for specials and such would probably be made with labels for each letter or number, you would select the one you needed and put it on a sign, it would look sorta homemade because you wouldn't always put them on perfectly straight. In the store, music would be Muzac, easy listening, all instrumental. The frozen food would be in open freezer displays, I don't remember any of the clear glass doors like they have now. All paper bags, double bagging necessary for heavy items, no plastic bags. Also, there was something called "blue laws," you couldn't buy some stuff on Sundays, so they would rope off parts of the store. I don't know if this was in all states, but it was the law in Texas. Walmart wasn't really a big deal yet but Kmart sold groceries, but it was in a separate part of the building.  Hope this helps.

P.S. Here a humorous article about old-school bag boys. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...110501_1_paper-bags-bagging-groceries-bag-boy


----------



## Jack of all trades (Apr 3, 2018)

My parents never talked about bag boys or blue laws. From the stories, my father preferred to do his own bagging. They did talk about how the seventies was the beginning of stores being open on Sundays. Apparently before that, if you ran out of something on a Sunday, tough.

Google "1979 grocery stores". I just did. A price sticker on each item. The clothes and hair styles stand out. The mat for the door seems to be pressure sensitive. Open chest freezers in the freezer aisle. Those are some of the things I found.

Also an old movie I saw once, Oh, God!, features John Denver as a supermarket employee. That movie was made in 1977. It has some scenes in the supermarket. Maybe look for other movies made in the late seventies and early eighties and watch them, looking for supermarket scenes.

 ("Can't do that right now. I'm doing research."  
"Research? You're watching old movies! Is that a shark?"
"Watching old movies is my research. I need to see old supermarkets."
"There won't be one out on the ocean.")


----------



## Terry D (Apr 4, 2018)

No bar-codes. Pressure-sensitive mats for automatic doors as has been mentioned. A much smaller selection of products (you might have three types of apples to choose from instead of 12). It was the dawn of the age of "Plastic, or paper?" for bags (1979). In the seventies and eighties there were few, if any, 'superstores'. Groceries were sold in free standing stores dedicated to the purpose. There were no eat-in food services, and few delis, or bakeries.  For booze you had to go to a liquor store. And, when shopping for groceries in Maine, if a sudden mist rolled in, you DID NOT go outside.


----------



## Blackstone (Apr 4, 2018)

Terry D said:


> No bar-codes. Pressure-sensitive mats for automatic doors as has been mentioned. A much smaller selection of products (you might have three types of apples to choose from instead of 12). It was the dawn of the age of "Plastic, or paper?" for bags (1979). In the seventies and eighties there were few, if any, 'superstores'. Groceries were sold in free standing stores dedicated to the purpose. There were no eat-in food services, and few delis, or bakeries.  For booze you had to go to a liquor store. And, when shopping for groceries in Maine, if a sudden mist rolled in, you DID NOT go outside.



Special props for the Stephen King reference!

I think I have most of this down, however I did want to put a pharmacy in it, as is common in modern stores in the state where I live (west coast). 

Do you recall any groceries back then also containing drug dispensaries or is that something that came about later? For as long as I can remember there have pretty much always been at least some grocery stores which had some pharmacy attached. It's sort of important here, though I guess could be changed if utterly incompatible with 1979.


----------



## Terry D (Apr 5, 2018)

Blackstone said:


> Special props for the Stephen King reference!
> 
> I think I have most of this down, however I did want to put a pharmacy in it, as is common in modern stores in the state where I live (west coast).
> 
> Do you recall any groceries back then also containing drug dispensaries or is that something that came about later? For as long as I can remember there have pretty much always been at least some grocery stores which had some pharmacy attached. It's sort of important here, though I guess could be changed if utterly incompatible with 1979.



I don't remember any here in the Midwest. I think that was more of a late 80s, early 90s thing. But I could be wrong.


----------

