The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company

A&P supermarkets. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Atlantic_and_Pacific_Tea_Company

Now, you might say, "Whoah, Max, they're still in business." 
Well, yes and no. 
They began to "consolidate" in the mid 1970s.  In other words, they started closing stores because business was bad.  The company is still around, but it's not the continent-wide, ubiquitous grocery chain it was 40 years ago. 

Even though the company's success was past its crest in the '70s, the A&P was our family supermarket.  The Wiki entry was a blast from the past.  I grew up with their housebrands: Eight O'Clock Coffee, Ann Page, Jane Parker, P&Q (Price & Quality).  Jane Parker Pumpernickel, dynamite! Right?  Probably not.  What did I know?  I was five. 
;D

Even if you have an A&P in your area, you won't find those house brands anymore.

That was our local supermarket.  Occasionally, we'd go to the P&C or the IGA, but the A&P was the old standby for everything except those miserable healthfoods my mother was into.  Today "healthfoods" are mainstream, but in 1975 if you asked the A&P manager about tofu, he'd think you meant some kind of martial art!
The A&P seemed huge compared to the mom 'n pops with its shiny waxed floors, long aisles, and bright fluorescents lights.
When we moved out of that sleepy NH town to the Boston 'burbs inthe early '80s, the size of the supermarket overwhelmed me.  That DeMoulas Market Basket was more than double the size of our A&P.  I hated it the first time we went there.  Funny thing is, a year later I got a job as a bagger at that Market Basket and worked for them until I graduated high school!  Uh, I spent most of the time hating the place while I worked there, but it kept me in doughnuts.  Last time I held a steady job for many years!  Anyway...
In the late '80s, I was back in Milford visiting relatives.  I went into that old A&P and felt claustrophobic.  It seemed really cramped and run down.  It was run down indeed.  It was within months of closing. 
Nashua, 10 miles down the road, was a boomtown in the late '80s.  Star Market, Market Basket, Shaw's, and Stop 'n' Shop were all in the vicinity.  Bigger, cheaper, slicker, up with the times, they outclassed dear old A&P in every way and sent the old girl packing.
The A&P west in Peterborough was open at least until 2001.  I used to pass by it going to Rte. 101 via 202.  It's not there anymore.
According to Wiki, there are still A&P's in Connecticut.  How many and where I know not.  I think A&P's are mostly down South nowadays.

What really no longer exists is the cache the name A&P carried.  It used to be synonymous with "supermarket," the way "McDonald's" is synonymous with "fast food joint." 
For instance, when John Updike wrote his little summer vignette about a supermarked incident, he called the short story "A&P" (1961).

Thought it was a hoot when I was 13.  When I worked in the supermarket, I identified with it in a horrid fashion, to wit:
"Then everybody's luck begins to run out. Lengel comes in from haggling with a truck full of cabbages on the lot and is about to scuttle into that door marked MANAGER behind which he hides all day when the girls touch his eye. Lengel's pretty dreary, teaches Sunday school and the rest, but he doesn't miss that much. He comes over and says, "Girls, this isn't the beach."
Now with 20 years hindsight, it's an even bigger hoot!
http://www.tiger-town.com/whatnot/updike/
Worth your read, but some PC types might find it sexist, like he describes the young woman's breasts as "the two smoothest scoops of vanilla I had ever known..."
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/12/evil6.gif

There's a long running joke in Canada about A&P.  It's the two step process that Canadians use when they take a leak ;D

There used to be an A&P about half a mile from my old house. It was there for over 15 years I think, but it became a Piggly Wiggly in 2002.

There was an A & P Grocery here in the south (KY) where I got my foot caught under the electronic door.  I think my mom was more upset than I was, though.  I believe that store has been closed at least 25 years, though.  It is now a Liquor Outlet.

We used to call it "Art & Pat" after my sister and her first boyfriend.




Cat

I remember A&P.  My, it has been a long time.

I vaguely remember hearing about this store...but I don't remember any in our area.

A&P is still popular in Canada.  There's probably atleast 1 in every city.  There are 2 of them here

The company formerly operated 237 stores through its A&P Canada unit in the Canadian province of Ontario. On August 15, 2005, the company finalized its sale of the Canadian operations to Metro Inc., a grocery retailer based in Montreal, for CAN$1.7 billion in cash and shares of Metro. It has also announced plans to divest itself of its Midwest operations.

From Wikipedia.

I work at Food Basics, which is one of the grocery stories chains, operated by A&P.

A&P is still going strong in New Jersey, where it's now headquartered. There's one in Montclair about 5 minutes from my house, another one in East Orange 10 minutes south, another in Nutley 15 minutes east, and a fourth in South Orange, 20 minutes south, and even a fifth in West Orange, if I'm not off the mark. Ours was recently renovated from its last major renovation in the late '80s; the whole place still had this VERY late '80s look, with black and white tile everywhere and clear plasticine salad bars, until very recently. There are also a number of Food Basics around.

Stop N' Shop is only a recent player around here; it started to move in around 2000 by buying out the old Grand Unions (very run down by the late '90s, though I grew up with ours) and reserving places in new shopping centers along the quickly developing Route 3 strip. There are also Pathmarks, Whole Foods Markets, Kings, and smaller places like C-Town around.

A&P is still going strong in New Jersey, where it's now headquartered. There's one in Montclair about 5 minutes from my house, another one in East Orange 10 minutes south, another in Nutley 15 minutes east, and a fourth in South Orange, 20 minutes south, and even a fifth in West Orange, if I'm not off the mark. Ours was recently renovated from its last major renovation in the late '80s; the whole place still had this VERY late '80s look, with black and white tile everywhere and clear plasticine salad bars, until very recently. There are also a number of Food Basics around.

Stop N' Shop is only a recent player around here; it started to move in around 2000 by buying out the old Grand Unions (very run down by the late '90s, though I grew up with ours) and reserving places in new shopping centers along the quickly developing Route 3 strip. There are also Pathmarks, Whole Foods Markets, Kings, and smaller places like C-Town around.


Yep, A&P's are still all over the place. But I've been so married to Shop Rite that I don't think I've set foot in an A&P for at least 3 years. I remember there was a huge, run down Grand Union on Route 4 near Paterson that was decrepit and expensive, easily the most expensive of all the food stores.

Trader Joe's have been popping up all over the place as well.

A&P was a staple here in Chicagoland when I was growing up.  As a tyke, we had it really good in terms of grocery chain competition - I recall going to Kroger, Hi/Lo, National, A&P and Jewel, among others.  I think it started in the early 70's but one by one these store chains started closing or moving out.  It was getting more and more difficult to get to a major  supermarket in the neighborhood.  Of course, the new stores that were built were a lot bigger than those that closed (and naturally more spread out), but we didn't care - we wanted our familiar old stores.

A&P was the last of the group above to close (excluding Jewel, which remained open altogether).  It seemed this happened approximately 1981.  Around that time or shortly thereafter, Dominick's supermarkets flooded Chicagoland to give some competition to Jewel.  But the playing field has really never been the same.

BTW Jewel is currently a branch of Albertson's.  It seems store chain independence is not very common these days.

I also remember A&P stores. The one by my childhhood home started as an A&P then turned into an A Mart, a Shop Rite and finally a fabric store. We also had Jewel food stores in the 70s. They closed a few years later and then came back as Jewel-Osco in the 90s and closed again.

Anybody remember Red Owl food stores?