a little variety, please ...

[collations]

Those variety store photos are a wonderful collection and an insight to one of our cultural treasures.
I'd love to see a series showing the interiors of these places. They're usually jam-packed with the necessities of real life.
A question: Do the advertisers (Coke, Kit-Kat, Nestle, Trident, Mars) provide the store signs for free?

Thanks, Goldie. My understanding is that in the 1960s and into the 1970s, the advertisers, which were mostly tobacco and soda pop companies, owned these signs. In exchange for allowing them to brand your store, they paid to put your name up their with their logo, and they maintained the signs. I'm not sure, but this is probably the case today with the candy bar signs. Those soda pop signs that remain today from that earlier era, however, are probably now orphans, abandoned by the advertisers, their original owners (the tobacco signs are, of course all long since gone).

 

[LowPolygon]

i like the way a lot of the older stores look in the evening. this store on Pape isn't technically a convenience store--rather of the 'fruits and vegetable' variety, which is a related but older model. these days, many of these stores have shelves of canned goods, have freezers, sell soft drinks and newspapers etc, even cigarettes--so the line is a bit blurry.

 

[adma]

i like the way a lot of the older stores look in the evening. this store on Pape isn't technically a convenience store--rather of the 'fruits and vegetable' variety, which is a related but older model. these days, many of these stores have shelves of canned goods, have freezers, sell soft drinks and newspapers etc, even cigarettes--so the line is a bit blurry.

In some ways, Rabba was likely meant as a successor to the type.

 

[LowPolygon]

In some ways, Rabba was likely meant as a successor to the type.

i think that's right--i reckon Kitchen Table as well. KT may in fact predate Rabba. the location at the base of the Summit at King and Bathurst has been there since about 1986, and i don't think i recall Rabba's going back that far, not downtown at least....

 

[collations]

Here's an interesting transition that has occured with one Parkdale storefront over the past decade or so.

12 Brock Ave, March 27, 1998 ... a Coca-Cola storefront,yes, with a button sign from the 1960s, but it also sports a much more recently added Trident name sign from the 1990s, covering the original name sign.

12 Brock Ave, March 14, 2003 ... Man Ying is now out of business and the Trident name sign has been removed, briefly revealing the previous occupant's name sign, Johnson's Variety. Here's a case where my after image also acts as a sort of before image, or a latent image of what was before the before image!

12 Brock Ave, October 25, 2009 ... And now there is not a trace of either or any previous occupants, as the storefront has been erased completely, painted over in white, as has the adjacent house to the south, both apparently acting as rear extensions to the business fronting on Queen St W at Brock Ave.

 

[LowPolygon]

Here's an interesting transition that has occured with one Parkdale storefront over the past decade or so.

12 Brock Ave, March 27, 1998 ... a Coca-Cola storefront,yes, with a button sign from the 1960s, but it also sports a much more recently added Trident name sign from the 1990s, covering the original name sign.

12 Brock Ave, March 14, 2003 ... Man Ying is now out of business and the Trident name sign has been removed, briefly revealing the previous occupant's name sign, Johnson's Variety. Here's a case where my after image also acts as a sort of before image, or a latent image of what was before the before image!

12 Brock Ave, October 25, 2009 ... And now there is not a trace of either or any previous occupants, as the storefront has been erased completely, painted over in white, as has the adjacent house to the south, both apparently acting as rear extensions to the business fronting on Queen St W at Brock Ave.

that's really astonishing! one of the weirdest EIFS jobs ever....what in the world were they thinking by entombing the building that way? its looks like the worlds cleanest crack house. the security camera appended to the side of the building is adding a bit of the drug vibe. its strange that they left the strip of precast stone across the bottom of the building--very odd.

i seems that number 10 has also been slathered with fake stucco as well, losing the lovely two-tone Victorian brickwork.

in the second image you can still see the tape rectangle leftover from the "Yes, We're Open" sign on the door in the first image. the "12" lettering also remains--those cheap slanted gold and black adhesive letters. you don't see those as frequently these days.

 

[thecharioteer]

Great thread! Some storefronts from the Toronto Archives:

Yonge:

Queen Street:

King near York:

Adelaide near Victoria:

Bloor and Bay (site of ManuLife Centre):

 

[ganjavih]

Those gritty old storefronts look awesome... wish we kept more of 'em.

 

[Edward Skira]

There's miles and miles of them along Yonge, Queen, King, Bloor, Parliament etc.

 

[adma]

Still, wish we kept more of 'em. The Bloor Building, especially, is such a seething microcosm of old-world urbanity that if it survived, ungentrified, it'd become iconic. (Note the original Bay-Bloor Radio location on the left.)

 

[LowPolygon]

i think that some of the most disconsolate storefronts are to be found in the northwest of the city. the landscape is awash in dismal dreary little strip plazas that date back to the 50's-60's. i suppose a lot of this development was originally related to the opening of the 401 in the early 1950's. now of course these are some of the most blighted parts of the city. its a whole other Toronto out there! these were taken on Keele street just south of Sheppard.

 

[collations]

Speaking of Lottario, we mustn't forget the modern genre of variety store whose primary advertiser is OLG--a rather depressing cutting-to-the-chase, that.

IIRC Bi-Rite may actually have been a small chain--the Bi-Way or Bargain Harold's of its really grotty time (which was obviously nearing its end at the time these shots were taken).

Note on the PCC streetcar to the left: an ad for that then-new prepaid-transit concoction known as the Metropass...

Apparently it WAS a chain at one time ... here's another image that I dug up with a Bi-Rite storefront in it ... dated March 1979 ... located on the west side of Parliament St, just north of Carlton St ... check out the elderly couple in the doorway, next to the doorway with the "Bachelor Service" sign!

 

[adma]

i think that some of the most disconsolate storefronts are to be found in the northwest of the city. the landscape is awash in dismal dreary little strip plazas that date back to the 50's-60's. i suppose a lot of this development was originally related to the opening of the 401 in the early 1950's. now of course these are some of the most blighted parts of the city. its a whole other Toronto out there! these were taken on Keele street just south of Sheppard.

Those orphaned quotation marks belonged to a restaurant called, believe it or not, Sit "N" Eat--which actually had a sister in Malton; which leads me to wonder/conclude that the development in question related more to DeHavilland than to the 401 (much as the sister related to A.V. Roe).

A lot of what we identify today as undifferentiated sprawl actually had de facto "company town" roots.

 

[collations]

Another interesting transition ...

184 Carlton St, [June] 1980

184 Carlton St, August 16, 1998

184 Carlton St, April 27, 2003

184 Carlton St, July 30, 2009

 

[collations]

to carry on ... some Coca-Cola fish-tail sign storefronts, pretty much at ten year intervals, albeit at different locations throughout the City ...

Queen St E, November 30, 1980

De Grassi St, September 1988

202 Dovercourt Rd, November 1, 1998

41 Claremont St, August 17, 2008