Another part of the landscape of 20th century America that has been steadily disappearing is the “Corner Store”. In the days before Supermarkets, and Convenience Stores, we had Grocery’s and Gas Stations and never the two should meet.
Now these weren’t the horse and buggy days, it was Batavia of the 1970’s. I would be lying to say we didn’t already have Supermarkets in town when I was a kid. We had Marchese’s Bells out in East Side Plaza on East Main Street, Twin Fair further out on Rt. 5 towards Stafford, Lablaw’s on West Main Street, and Star Market on the corner of Ellicott and Jackson. But stores like those required a drive in the car, and were pretty much reserved for the weekly shopping trip on Thursday nights.
Before the advent of “Convenience Stores” if you needed a loaf of bread, or a gallon of milk, you went to a corner grocery store. At the time Gas Stations were still places you fixed cars, and got gas, and Lord knows you’d never dream of eating anything that came from one.
The corner grocery stores were a fixture in Batavia. Just about every neighborhood had one. Ours was called “Rheinhart’s” after the name of the long time owner. I never remember a Mr. Rheinhart, just Mrs. Rheinhart, who was ancient by then, and pretty much stayed upstairs in her apartment. The store was on Oak Street, but to get there from Prospect, we used to cut through “the vacant lot”.
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The vacant lot was just that. A lot without a house that seemed to belong to no one. It had a dirt path worn through the middle of it, and was a weedy patch where kids would sometimes play. If you walked the path to the back of it you came out in the parking lot in front of Rheinhart’s. At night time it was dark and scary. I can remember Granny walking me to the store one autumn evening. Crossing the dark vacant lot I squeezed her hand tightly. The wind was blowing and we could here the tinkling sound of windchimes in the air. She told me that it was the noise of the bells that Santa’s elves wore on their slippers, and that they were out there in the darkness watching me. I squeezed her hand even harder, and looked about, hoping to catch a glimpse of the elves peeking out of the lilac bushes.
Mrs. Rheinhart lived upstairs and ran a small gift shop. There was an upstairs porch in back that was enclosed with louvered glass. She kept plants out there and at night the lights from inside glowed a mysterious green, like the lights of a sunken liner at the bottom of an ocean of darkness. She also had a pet parrot which made the place even more exotic, and it you were lucky, sometimes you’d hear it talking as you cut through the vacant lot on your way to buy a pack of baseball cards, or a candy bar.
As I said, every neighborhood had a corner store. There was Platten’s on the corner of North Street and Bank, which amazingly still lives on…
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There was Peter’s Deli on West Main…
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Store on West Main
This one, who’s name escapes me, on the Corner of Ross and Ellsworth, was one of the first to close.
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And finally, there was this little one on the corner of Washington and Summit.
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It was in the basement of the house, and was the tiniest of them all. It seemed to make it’s living selling candy to kids walking home from St. Joe’s and the Junior High. I spent a lot of pocket change there over the years on Swedish Fish.
Swedish Fish
Honestly, I am still mystified by the economics of these places. How they were able to make a living off of pocket change was a mystery then, and it’s a mystery now. And yet they not only survived for the better part of a century, but actually supported families, and came to be known by the names of their long time owners. This is human scaled economics, and you don’t see much of it anymore in the U.S. Like the hot house flowers in Mrs. Rheinhart’s porch, once the corner store was exposed to the cold harsh winds of competition, they withered and passed away. But the buildings still remain as reminders to those of us old enough to know better.
The store in the corner of Ross and Ellsworth was called Say’s.
Came here from The Batavian. You forgot Ashe’s on Main Street. Mrs. Ashe was quite a character, but let us read the comic books for free because we were nice kids. It was in the little building next to where Arby’s is now, but I can’t think of what is in there at the moment. Addeco maybe?
There also was Quartley’s on the corner of Summit and Washington Avenue. It was in the basement and was always loaded with us kids as we stopped for junk on our walk home from the Jr. High.
Oh, I forgot…Reinhart’s was turned into The Short Stop after Mrs. Reinhart either retired or passed away (I don’t know which). It was never the same, never had the great candy selection, and they didn’t know our names! Mrs. R would let us go up to her apartment and talk to the parrot while she stayed in the store. Can you even imagine this happening today?
We lived smack in the middle of where Reinhart’s, Ashe’s, and Peter’s stores were. Each had it’s benefits, so we went to all of them. Terry Peters and his Dad were always awesome to us as kids. All 3 stores bring back great memories!
Lori & Lori,
Thanks for the comments. And for sharing your own memories.
Tom
The corner of Ross and Ellsworth was “The Red & White”! My grandma lived at 137 Ross across the street.
Sorry, became Say’s later on.
Nice blog. Enjoyed going through it specially the Swedish Fish. Keep it up the good work. Cheers
The cornor stores bring back so many memories of the best penny candies agoing. There use to be the jars of red hot dollars and juju fish along with the bazooka buble gum behind the counter at Rhienharts but there was also the popcicles and fudgecicles for about 7 cents each. The walk home from St Joes use to start with a stop at the pop machine on washington at bank and the then stoping at the store where washington towers now stands and getting the deposit on the bottle to buy penny candy for the rest of the walk to Prospect Ave. Then Urban Renewal came through and tore down all the great stores on Main street and Washington to make way for what we see today. For Several years the last few at St Joe”s the cold winter winds started whipping through the huge vacant lot that became the mall. Which eventually became the death of Main Street. When the mall first opened there were so many shops with such a neat variety of goods but once the large malls of Rochester and Buffalo came to existance the stores slowly closed. The Charm that Batavia once had was lost.
Don’t forget about the Star Wars cards too! I spent a fortune on those things!
Quartleys was the one on Summit and Washington.
I’m a little older than most of you (81) I remember Happs store on Washington Ave just west of State St. Went to school with Joe Marcheese and his sister, Dorthy. There father had a fresh produce store on State St just south of Main. Across the street was Ryan’s Meat Market. All disappeared during the ‘remodeling’. There was also another Store on Ellsworth opposite Manhattan Ave. in the 30’s.
Thanks for bringing back old memories. We live in Arizona now but get back to Batavia every year to visit the family.
I spent many hours “shopping” at Quartley’s. We lived on Summit Street, and that was our neighborhood store, even though Lambert’s (the future Platten’s) and the Red and White were probably just as close. It was all about loyalty.
Quartley’s was formerly known as Murphy’s. Mr. and Mrs. Murphy were a very nice older couple. Then Mr. Quartley took over the business, I’d describe him as more of a curmudgeon than a friendly neighborhood grocer.
When I was 13, I “ran into” a car as I turned left from Summit on to Washington Avenue. Not seriously injured, but I was knocked off my bike, and as I lay on the ground, I saw a worried looking Mr. Quartley on the scene. And I thought he didn’t like kids.
Who can blame him, hordes of children used to converge on his story every day after school…I believe he used to limit the number of non-adults who could enter at a time.
Mary,
Yes, Mr.s Quarterly was quite a curmudgeon. Us kids used to give him a pretty hard time unfortunately. I can’t say I’d have envied him.
Thanks for visiting!