Edina Historical Society

Does anyone remember National Tea Company? Despite its misleading name in the city phone directory, it sold more than tea and wisely chose to advertise that fact by putting "food stores" on its building. The full-fledged grocery store was one of several in a national chain based in Chicago. For more on the company, see the Encyclopedia of Chicago web site.

National opened in Edina in the later 1940s, and apparently remodeled based on the differences in the two photos. The chain struggled after being bought out by a Canadian company in the 1960s, and the Edina store was one of the casualties.

The site at 3945 West 50th Street is now a Lunds grocery store, which was originally just across the street. Some long-time residents will remember that Lunds opened in 1942 as a Hove's supermarket. For more on Lunds history, see the Lunds & Byerly's web site.

"The charm of history and its enigmatic lesson consist in the fact that, from age to age, nothing changes and yet everything is completely different." —Aldous Huxley

As new Southdale owners are re-envisioning the retail mix of business at the mall, they're considering adding a grocery store. That surprised some museum visitors, who wondered whether shoppers really would buy a cart full of groceries when they come to a mall for things like Ugg boots, down comforters or a new pair of eyeglasses.

Southdale, in fact, opened in 1956 with a 30,000-square-foot Red Owl, which was then the largest grocery in the Upper Midwest. By 1950s standards, this store was huge. Keep in mind that this was 1956, years before huge warehouse-style Rainbow and Cub Foods came on the scene.

Here is the boxed cereal section. Pretty impressive even by today's super store standards.

The store was located on the Dayton's (now Macy's) side of the mall (north end). Here's an interior shot.

Here's an exterior view showing its location compared to Dayton's, as well as how those truckloads of cereal and other items got into the store.

And another image showing how the groceries got out.  Shoppers also had the option of a "Pick Up Station," where (museum visitors tell me) groceries came out on a conveyor and store employees loaded them into your waiting car. (You may have noticed a Pick Up Station sign in the photo of the interior.)

Mrs. Shopper, just as Southdale developer Victor Gruen envisioned in the 1950s brochure below, could spend a cold January morning in the indoor comfort of a shopping center that duplicated the services of a traditional downtown, including No. 5 : "Buy the family groceries." Brochure is part of Edina Historical Society's Southdale collection.

Postscript:
Red Owl moved out of the mall in 1973, just across the street on York Avenue.  One of the Edina municipal liquor stores, which was located next to Red Owl inside the mall, moved out at the same time to the neighboring address.

The stand alone grocery store would later be torn down and replaced by Cub Foods.

I haven't yet found any documentation on why Red Owl left Southdale. The city apparently opted to own its liquor store property rather than paying rent, perhaps Red Owl executives shared the same view. (See story on liquor store history by Joe Sullivan in the City of Edina's Spring 2005 About Business publication.)

Will a new grocery store succeed at Southdale? Will it bring in more traffic and business to other stores in the mall? Although history can help inform decisions, retail is constantly reinvented and what is old is new again. People with better marketing skills than I will ultimately make that decision. 

Despite all the uncertainties, I do know one thing: two big bunches of celery will not sell for 25 cents, the price seen in the last photo.

This time of year many Edinans head for warmer climates to golf, walk along the beach, get a little sun and open a grocery store.

OK, that last one probably only applies to one man, Jerry Paulsen, founder of Jerry's Foods in Edina.

While most people like to relax on vacation, Jerry worked during four of his winter vacations to get a supermarket built on the island.

Having wintered at the popular "snowbird" getaway for 10 years, Jerry had long seen a need for a grocery store in the area. Little did he realize that building one would take so long and meet with so much resistance.

The public, which questioned in 1983 whether the new store would change the island's character, recently named the Jerry's "Best Grocery Store on the Island." The 27,000 square foot supermarket had many features unique to the area but similar to Jerry's other stores in Minnesota. News articles went into great detail about the unheard of practice of drive-up parcel pickup.

Jerry's in Sanibel, in turn, has many features unheard of in Minnesota. The store is built on stilts 13 feet above ground level because of frequent flooding by tropical storms. Although more expensive than the typical waterproofing construction, the stilts offer the side benefit of underground parking.

The out-of-state location can sell wine, which is prohibited in Minnesota. And it does offer a sizable section of tanning aids and snacks than the Edina store - for those folks who do golf, walk along the beach and relax during their vacations.