MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
There used to be a supermarket near us called Gateway. I have been thinking about it this morning. Since 5.02
From what I remember it was pretty bad (and was carrefour before then?)
I know it very well. It was pretty bad
Doh!! Beaten to it!
Gateway replaced by Safeways (who also owned kwik-Save), bought by Co-Op and probably explains why there is one on every damn corner.
Ah Gateway! Worked in three different stores in Bristol stacking shelves when I was in my mid-late teens. Had to wear a fetching green jacket. Not a bad place to work at the time, paid me enough for my beer money which was fine with me.
What happened to Netto?
I worked in our local Gateway when I as sixteen, remember having a sausage fight across the store, I was on the deli counter with loose sausages, the others were on the meat aisle. Then there was cutting the mold off prepack cheese and putting it out on the deli counter, putting out of date eggs out as free range so they lost the sell by date. Being expected to do 20 mins unpaid overtime every shift as the store shut at the same time our shift finished but we weren't allowed to pack up until the store closes.
Gateway replaced by Safeways (who also owned kwik-Save), bought by Co-Op and probably explains why there is one on every damn corner.
Nah, Morrison's bought Safeway.
Our first 'chain' supermarket in the Lincolnshire coastal town where I grew up was Fine Fare. Didn't last long before it was turned into an arcade, but that was par for the course.
How we partied when the Co-op was built!
Hintons
Walter Wilsons
Regularly used to shop in Wullie Lows in Greenock.
Why do I still see Safeway branded trucks periodically? There are no Safeway branded stores anywhere near me. And am I seeing ghosts?
(The last Safeway branded store I saw was in the US).
I remember one called Presto
My dad used to write signs for William Low in Crieff for a few extra quid on the side, massive big things with various fruit & veg on them. The spare boards ended up being used by me for various Mondrian style artworks, they were huge (and looked crap but I was happy).
Used to get your shopping in brown paper bags in those days, how eco friendly. It would never catch on today.
Fine Fare. As a kid, going there was a treat (hey, it was the early 70’s).
Had their own brand in bright yellow with stencilled military lettering. A bit like Repo Man.
Not sure if it’s just the one in Aberdeen but think they were bought over by Asda.
First one I can remember was International - which went on to be Gateway according to Wikipedia
Two names from the past ^^^ in Presto and Walter Willson.
Gateway became Somerfield before Co-Op takeover.
Safeway bought by Morrisons with some stores sold to John Lewis/Waitrose.
Netto UK sold to Asda then came back to UK in jv with Sainsbury; didn't last long as Sainsbury pulled out.
Now have no presence in UK.
Edit:third name from past ^^^ in Fine Fare.
No Liptons?
Fine Fare or Safeway Carlisle - iirc, they had a period where they did big bins of flour, cereal, dried pulses etc.
And sweets. Which IIRC my brother maximised with his Christmas money one year and bough a couple of kilo's of Smarties.
Safeways is morrison's manufacturing brand for stuff made for other shops (corner shops etc.)
IIRC the was a place in wales we went through with 2 spars across the road from each other most odd.
The Safeway supermarkets were rebranded Morrisons IIRC.
Kwik Save was closed down IIRC? Sometimes we'd shop there when I was a kid and I'd turn my nose up at all their own branded stuff to my Mum's dismay.
Supermarkets have gone through a lot of changes over the last couple of decades due to discounters such as Aldi.
Even Waitrose is feeling the pinch.
No Liptons?
Used to have a local Liptons when I was a kid.
It's a Boots now.
As a kid the best ever egg and chips treat-lunch was Liptons cafe above the shop in Whitley Bay.
My local shop (for local people - are you local?) was a Co-op, it then became a MacColls, and now has loads of Safeway branded products. But I haven't seen a Safeway in Scotland for about 20 years. Makes you think, doesn't it??
Fine Fare. As a kid, going there was a treat (hey, it was the early 70’s).
Me too - Knaresborough High Street. It was the last remaining place I could get my childhood favourite – kidney soup.
Yeah, Morrisons bought Safeway to expand their presence in the South didn't they? The Scarbourough Safeway became a Sainsbury as there was already a big Morrisons in town. The Otley one became a Waitrose.
Not been mentioned so far so does anyone remember Hillards? That's what the Skipton Tesco was called originally.
Had their own brand in bright yellow with stencilled military lettering.
Fine Fare yellow brand bran flakes. Plenty of sugar and with hot milk. Literally lived on the stuff.
I have yet to find a bran flake that even comes close.
I remember when it was International 😬
I remember Hillards - didn’t they get bought by Tesco?
There was one round the back of the old Wakefield bus station
I got goaded by a bad crowd into going to that supermarket as my first ever.
Since then I can't stop going to all kinds of supermarkets.
I suppose you could say that first one was a Gateway.
I used to work in marketing for Gateway back in the day.
Gateway was a Bristol based chain of relatively small-sized supermarkets predominantly in the South and South West. It bought or merged with a number of other chains including Carrefour in the UK (small number of large hypermarkets), International (chain of small stores in the South) and Fine Fare (national chain of supermarkets) and built a new HQ in Bristol.
The main challenge was trying to integrate all the different store types, sizes, branding, own label, merchandising, marketing and systems. They had some of the smallest stores in the country but also had the biggest former Carrefour hypermarkets.
They inevitably ended up in financial difficulties, had started a rebrand to Somerfield, were bought by the financiers Isosceles, and sold the 80+ largest stores to Asda all in a relatively short space of time.
I left just before the sale of the Isosceles takeover and the sale of the largest stores, but thoroughly enjoyed my time working there - a benefit being I moved from living in a grotty part of Hertfordshire and working in Milton Keynes for one of their divisions, to being relocated to Bristol where I still live.
Safewayyyyy, everything you want from a store and a little bit mooooooOoore.
Liked Kwiksave, our store of choice as students. You could get up to £50 cash back even if you didn't have money in your account. 😂 plus we used to get a 70cl bottle of white rum from there for 6.99!!! Those were the days.
Anyone else have a Cirle K?
Kwik Save was closed down IIRC?
Years ago.
I worked at a few different branches in not-so-nice bits of Herts & N London when I was a student.
Customers were generally more pleasant than at the Sainsbo's in the posh stockbroker town I worked at before.
The Saturday girls weren't as good though.
Wasn't Gateway called Key Markets before that?
Early 90s Newcastle I remember some very weird Co-op supermarkets in the centre, big with strange products chaotically displayed. Felt like shopping in the eastern block. Think there were competing Co-op divisions back then?
Why do I still see Safeway branded trucks periodically?
Morrisons make a lot of their own bakery and meat products. They resurrected the Safeway brand to sell their stuff to 3rd party convenience stores. They closed all their own branded small local shops so this was a way to get back into that market.
I also remember Hillards, largely as my mum worked at the head office in Cleckheaton. A lifetime ago! 🙂
Fond memories of dropping a big jar of pickled onions at the checkout of Walter Wilsons in Keswick as a little kid. It used to be behind Blacks where Temple Sports and the puzzle place are.
The Golden Egg restaurant used to be upstairs
Edit - thinking about it, the supermarket in Knaresborough wasn't a Fine Fare but a Mace.
I think.
Nice people, with nice prices, International.
The supermarket I worked in as an after-school job in the early '90s started out as a Norco - the Northern Co-Operative, which I think was a chain exclusive to north-east Scotland. When they got into financial difficulties my store was bought out by Sainsbury's, but as it was a fairly small store it got rebranded as Presto, much to the staff's annoyance. The Norco uniform had quite a nice navy tie but Presto made us wear horrible bright blue dicky bows.
The oldest supermarket I remember was Fine Fare, I still remember their budget brand Fine Fare Yellow Pack stuff. I remember being taken on shopping trips to the Fine Fare at the Bridge of Dee in Aberdeen by my parents. I think that store got taken over by Gateway at some point.
One store that was the complete opposite of a supermarket still sticks in my mind. I think it was called Meff's. It was near the centre of Aberdeen. It sold stuff like flour, grains and yeast I think. It was really old fashioned, wooden floors, wooden shop counters and the staff wore brown shop coats and scooped stuff out of wooden barrels (wood is a big part of my memories of the place) for the customers. Even in the '80s it seemed like a shop lost in time. I wasn't even sure if I'd imagined it until I checked with my parents that it had really existed.
My local... supermarket is a stretch, but mini-mart a la Kwik Save, was a VG Store. Which I believe (somewhat ironically) stood for "very good."
Verymarkets