D&W Locations?

[NorthCoast]

I just was reading about Plums moving into the Alpine Family Fare (old D&W) and it got me thinking. I know we made a list (upon my request) of all the original Meijer stores (pre-supercenter). So I just thought I'd try to remember all the old D&W stores and their history and/or fate. Yes...I'm bored.

-36th Street: I think a Halloween store was there during October

-Alpine: Converted to Family Fare after buy out, changing hands to Plums

-Beckwith: ???

-Breton Meadows: Converted to Family Fare

-Breton Village: Still a D&W

-Burlingame: Converted to Family Fare

-Caledonia: Still a D&W

-Cascade: Still a D&W

-Fremont: ???

-Fulton Heights: Converted to Family Fare

-Gaslight Village: Still a D&W

-Grandville: Still a D&W

-Grand Haven: Still a D&W

-Holland: Still a D&W

-Jenison: Converted to Family Fare

-Kentwood: Converted to Family Fare

-Northtown: Closed by Spartan, vacant

-Norton Shores: Closed by Spartan, status unknown

-Parkview (Kalamazoo): Still a D&W

-Portage: Still a D&W

-Rockford: Still a D&W

-Stevensville: Now a Martin's Supermarket

-St. Joseph: Now a Martin's Supermarket

-Three Rivers: ???

-Walker: Closed by Spartan, vacant

-Zeeland: Closed by Spartan, I heard someone moved into it though

Those are all the ones that I can remember. I thought I read on here that there was one downtown for a brief time but I don't know anything beyond that. For some reason I'm also under the impression that they operated a couple independent pharmacies as well.

[walker]

Those are all the ones that I can remember. I thought I read on here that there was one downtown for a brief time ...

[tamias6]

My family' first visit to D&W happened 23 years ago at the 36 street location in Wyoming. We bought some bananas for a quick snack but they were harder than brick and tasted horrible. Talk about good impressions. Since then Meijer became our primary source for groceries.

[pcdoctor]

The D&W on 36th Street in Wyoming was probabily the smallest D&W that I could think of. It wasn't a great store at all. Needless to say it closed down. When D&W sold almost all it's stores to Spartan, the majority of them became family fare. I kinda wished the one in Walker stayed open. That store is actually bigger than the lake michigan drive location. There was also a D&W store on Plainfield and 4 mile and that closed down too when spartan bought out D&W. I believe it's still vacant. There was a D&W on Leonard and Ball. That was converted into a Save a Lot. This was before D&W Sold to spartan. For a long time, they did keep the D&W Pharmacy open. That eventually closed down.

[tamias6]

I too thought that the Walker D&W closure was unexpected. The building was totally renovated in the mid 90's and was a nice spacious store. But it was ether D&W or the Lake Michigan Dr. Family Fare. Spartan made a good call by dropping D&W to focus all energy on the Family Fare as that store is on a more heavily traveled state trunk line in and out of GR and thus gets allot more exposure.

[misskelliecmu]

The D&W in Fremont closed the week that super Walmart came in. It is now a clothing store.

[FilmMaker]

Is this list meant to inventory the Family Fare stores as well? How about Plumbs? Daanes? Spartan has slowly been gobbling up many of these brands...

[tamias6]

Is this list meant to inventory the Family Fare stores as well? How about Plumbs? Daanes? Spartan has slowly been gobbling up many of these brands...

[NorthCoast]

Is this list meant to inventory the Family Fare stores as well? How about Plumbs? Daanes? Spartan has slowly been gobbling up many of these brands...

[tamias6]

I was originally just thinking about the D&W's in general but if people wanna talk about other old school grocery stores, I think that's alright. I know it may not be anything riveting but this is the kind of the information and tid bits that is just nice to have hanging around somewhere for reference purposes.

Speaking of old school, can anyone tell me anything about Eberhard's?

[pcdoctor]

Actually wondering if there is still a Family Fare on Burlingame? If so, there's a Family Fare on 28th/Michael and that Family fare store which aren't far away. How do they manage that? Also, as of October 11, 2008, the former walker D&W store is still vacant. They really should put something in there. Maybe it should have still been kept as a D&W.

[NorthCoast]

Actually wondering if there is still a Family Fare on Burlingame? If so, there's a Family Fare on 28th/Michael and that Family fare store which aren't far away. How do they manage that? Also, as of October 11, 2008, the former walker D&W store is still vacant. They really should put something in there. Maybe it should have still been kept as a D&W.

[NorthCoast]

Eberheart's was a chain of grocery stores that tended to build next door to K-mart stores at least here in Michigan. Their corporate offices and their distribution center were located on 3 mile Rd and Kinney Ave. Back when I was in Junior High school I took a school trip there. The CEO of the company gave us a tour of the distribution center, corporate offices, and showed us the data center in the corporate office basement.

I think obsolescence and out dated business practices pretty much did them in. My junior high school trip to their corporate offices happened in 1987. Even back then their technology looked really old school. Their data center consisted of old 1970's IBM mainframes crunching on data stored on reel to reel tape drives.

[NorthCoast]

Is this list meant to inventory the Family Fare stores as well? How about Plumbs? Daanes? Spartan has slowly been gobbling up many of these brands...

[cpgrandrapids]

It would be interesting to see a list of old Eberhard's locations as well....since they were just as prominent and abundant as D&W or Family Fare.

I believe that the Gaslight Village D&W use to be an Eberhard's. I also believe they had a location in Jenison in what is now part of the Cottonwood Center Plaza (Fitness 19/Papa Johns/Jude's/Affordable Nutrition). I know there was also a location in Grandville but I'm not quite sure where...I think it was in a plaza at the corner of Wilson and Chicago Dr....NE corner?

[Nitro]

There was one on the corner of Fuller and Knapp as well

[fotoman311]

Again, it would be neat to inventory all of the now defunct grocery stores including the aforementioned as well as Prevo's, Great Day, Kroger, Ralph's, etc.

Mapping these locations and coding them by date opened (or closed) would really paint a pretty accuarate portrait of how Grand Rapids grew and expanded into the suburbs throughout the years.

[LA Dave]

There was the one on Plainfield where the MESC and Lottery office is now.