The Neighborhood Corner Store

By Mark Fleischer

“The corner store has a mythic place in our view of American cities. Mythic because, in most cities, they exist only in our minds.”

So says the Strong Towns blog.

When we think of the gold standard for the grocery store in the Mid-South, we of course think first of the chain of Piggly-Wiggly stores founded in 1916 by Clarence Saunders. However, throughout the 1920s and through the ’60s, little and lesser-known neighborhood grocery stores could be found everywhere before the big chains took over the landscape.

Memphis Magazine’s Ask Vance recalls that “You have to realize that years ago, before national chains took over the grocery industry here, it was commonplace to have small, family-owned and operated groceries, markets, and other stores scattered along the residential streets of this city. There was a very practical reason for that: In the first half of the 1900s, we employed a very novel means of transportation when we decided to go shopping: We walked. And so merchants opened stores in their own neighborhoods, and that’s where they drew their customers.”

A few neighborhood stores still exist here in the Mid-South, including High Point Grocery in High Point Terrace. But now these little gems are rare; today’s economics just don’t make them sustainable.

In Midtown Memphis, quite a few family-owned or small-chain “cooperative” stores dotted the map for generations. Among others, midtowners could count on grocers in their neighborhood that included Leadway Food Stores and WeOna grocers, as well as smaller, neighborhood Piggly Wiggly stores.

Though Piggly Wiggly would eventually dominate the grocery store landscape, the chain started small. There were local stores in midtown at 622 S. Bellevue; at 2129 Central Ave on the corner at Cooper St, home for years of the former Toad Hall Antiques store; and at 237 Barksdale St, south of Union Ave near Linden.

Leadway was a cooperative of small, “Locally Owned” stores. The telephone book advertised Leadway as “Dedicated to service to customers. Fine foods at low prices.” In the 1940s midtowners could walk to Charlie Adams Grocery & Market at 2127 Madison, where Overton Square is now; to Hellum Brothers at 938 S. Cooper; to Short’s Grocery & Market at 637 S. Bellevue; and to Leadway #32 at 663 S. Rembert.

WeOna stores, as Ask Vance says, “was a citywide chain of individually owned and operated groceries — hence the name: ‘We Own a Store.'” WeOna stores could also be found all over midtown. At various times neighborhoods could find a local WeOna at 243 Barsdale St. (two doors down from a Piggly Wiggly); at 641-43 S. Cooper, operated as the L.J. Vescovo grocery, which is now home to Otherlands Coffee Bar; WeOna #73 at 2029 Peabody at Diana, a brick building renovated in the early ’60s that now houses offices; WeOna #16, B.E. Turner’s Grocery at 2129 Young Ave, where Cafe Ole is now; and WeOna #16 at 1605 Monroe, owned for over 60 years by the same family, the Mangiante’s.

Enjoy these little blasts from the past.

Leadway Food Store #32, at 663 South Rembert Street

A residence for generations, this former neighborhood store in Central Gardens from 1927-29 housed the “Handy-Andy Store,” and from 1930-41 was owned and operated by a T. Benton Chalmer.

In later years it became part of the chain of Leadway Food Stores. Devin Greaney, local writer and historian added that “Stepherson’s owned it. Later they became Big Star and now (we know it as) Superlo.” This was listed as Leadway Food Store #32.

Central Gardens Memories, watercolor by C. Stepherson, which until recently was framed and hanging in the Superlo Foods grocery in the Audubon Place shopping center in East Memphis. This is a newly-restored print by Paulsen Printing, courtesy of Sue Ann Duffy of East Buntyn.

The former store on S. Rembert, today. View south between Cowden and Higbee.

Reader Ruthie McAfee Cassin told us that “In my childhood, It was DiBandi’s Grocery. (60s). My dear friend and her late husband bought it and turned it into a home many years ago. She still lives there!”

The WeOna Stores

A WeOna store, at 641 S Cooper, with a drapery and cornice shop, 1962. Otherlands Coffee Bar occupies this building today. (Memphis and Shelby County Room, Memphis Public Library & Information Center.)
Lenow’s WeOna Store #73, 2029 Peabody at Diana, view west. Date unknown. Photo courtesy Ask Vance and Memphis Magazine
Same view today. Google image
WeOna Store at 243 Barksdale, two doors down from a Piggly Wiggly. 1934-35 photo, view north toward Union Ave. Memphis and Shelby County Room, Memphis Public Library & Information Center.
Cooper at Young Ave looking south, with a corner store and barber shop on the left and WeOna Food Store #11 on the right. 1945. Memphis and Shelby County Room, Memphis Public Library & Information Center.
1605 Monroe, home of Mangiante’s Grocery from 1918 to 1941, and the Mangiante’s WeOna store #16 from 1941 to 1981. Author photo (left) and The Commercial Appeal
Mangiante’s WeOna in its heyday, date unknown, courtesy of Joe Lowry.
1605 Monroe today. Photo by author

10 Replies to “The Neighborhood Corner Store”

  1. I’ve always wondered what had been in that old store at 1605 Monroe. Thanks for the interesting post!

    1. Thanks Debra! We’re slowly working on doing a ‘storefront’ issue for later in the year, and we will be doing a more thorough exploration of all the old groceries and storefronts throughout the city. It will be fun!

  2. My Grandparents lived at 1910 Higbee until 1960. I had to make trips to that store many times on errands when staying at their house. I was not allowed to walk down the Alley as I was 8 or 9 years old in the 1950’s. I remember it well. Midtown seemed like home to me for years. Quiet and ornate, a classic American Neighborhood and irreplaceable. The City is allowing builders to remove older homes and cram in Zero Lot line homes wherever they can. There are not many people left to appreciate the area or fight the construction.

  3. Would love to know more about the commercial strip on Overton Park Ave between Avalon and Stonewall. I recall as a child growing up in midtown walking from my home on North Parkwat to Louie Pierinie’s little grocery at 1565-67. My church, Evergreen Presbyterian, bought the property a couple years ago and since then I’ve tried to dig up any old photos or more history. Please help!

  4. The Piggly Wiggly you show on Barksdale at Linden was later – by the 1960s when I was growing up down the street – the Barksdale Sundry. It was mainly a soda fountain staffed by two ladies – one I remember named Mickey. That strip was demolished in the 70s for the expansion of the Library at McLean and Peabody. The Barksdale Sundry moved to Cooper and Courtland and became the Barksdale Restaurant. Now it’s Bob’s Barksdale Restaurant.

  5. Just wrote about the corner stores I remembered growing up in the Highland Heights area in the 60’s on my Facebook page and got some interesting responses. Wish I had photos of them back then. Googled trying to find them now. Found one still in operation but all chained up. It’s amazing how many there were. Every few blocks it seemed. All mom and pop type. One around the corner from me I could take my glass soda bottles and cash in for banana Kisses and a grape Nehi soda or whatever looked interesting that day. Great memories.

  6. I grew up stopping every day on my way home from school at Bobbitt’s Drug Store at the corner of Chelsea and Breedlove. My mom gave me 35 cents a day — 25 cents for my school lunch, the remaining 10 cents to be used to buy either a double-dip ice cream cone or a comic book at Bobbitt’s. Just across Breedlove was Johnny Danovi’s Weona, where my mom bought groceries. Classic two aisle grocery store with Johnny (an Italian immigrant) operating the butcher counter at the back and his wife checking customers out at the massive manual cash register at the front.

  7. There was a corner store located at Cox and
    Vinton. Called Bryant’s. I shopped there in 1963. It was within walking distance from where we lived. Mr. Bryant was always nice. They had a meat case in back of the store. They would make sandwiches or you could buy lunch meat. Cheese that kind of sandwich makings. I used to go in there and ask the man behind the counter for .15 worth of bologna or cheese and cut it real thin! Very memorable! One of the best memories I have for that year. Great year for us, we had our son.

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