My great-grandfather ran a little grocery store on the corner of his farm, up on the road. He carried the basics.....flour, sugar, salt, eggs, whatever was growing on the farm at the time, some canned goods, kerosene, and whatever he could get his hands on. He liked to act gruff, but reportedly had a tender heart and couldn't turn anyone away. He kept a "tab" but a lot of people never paid him a cent. Of course, the grandchildren were in there all the time getting penny candy, cheese, crackers, soda pops or anything else they wanted. My mom, who was the spoiled brat of the lot, climbed up on the edge of the egg crate once to reach something and knocked it over. Eggs flew everywhere. Great-grandpa roared at her and as she scampered out the door, she turned around and said "I'll come back tomorrow and break some more eggs if I want!" The story says that he just laughed at her nerve (she was his favorite) and told her he'd be waiting for her with a switch.
At one of the grocery stores where I grew up they offered free boxes to pack your groceries in, as an alternative to paper bags. There was a big bin of boxes up front, you picked out your boxes and brought them to the checkout counter. Our house never suffered from lack of good sturdy boxes.
Keedoozle Keedoozle was the first fully automated grocery store in the United States, a vending machine concept developed by grocer Clarence Saunders. Sample merchandise was displayed behind rows of little display cabinets of glass boxes. Shoppers selected their merchandise with a key given to them initially. Customers then put the key in labeled keyholes at the merchandise display and selected the quantity. The first Keedoozle store opened in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1937. It closed after a few months because the mechanical technology was not capable of handling the high traffic loads. Keedoozle grocery store supply room
An old grocery store in our town, built in 1906. Originally Fuller Grocery; now Daily Groceries Co-op
"The Star Grocery in Eagle River country, California (1870s-1880s), provides a glimpse of a frontier merchant operating in the middle of the wilderness." — Western Mining History