Acme | Philadelphia, PA

 

701 Cathedral Road

Welcome to the Andorra Acme!

It's our first time in Philadelphia! However, it's not to see a store in a good condition. The Andorra Acme was scheduled to close by March 31 along with the Milltown location, but it closed on February 17, not long after I visited. This location opened on February 7, 1962 as an original anchor to the center, and had not been expanded much after, making it one of the smallest modern Acmes. It also hadn't been remodeled since the early 2000s, being the last store with the Industrial Circus decor inside as we'll see momentarily. Rumor has it that GIANT is interested in opening a new location here and expanding further down into the neighboring stores, but they haven't officially announced that yet. Let's pay our respects to the Acme of the Andorra Shopping Center.

We enter on the left side of the store through the 70s-style vestibule. Normally, you would walk past the registers down the front wall towards the grand aisle on the right side of the building, but all of the fresh foods were gone by the time I visited so that section was blocked off with shelves and signs.

Customer service is on the other side of the vestibule. I was always a fan of this decor, so I'll be sad to see it go for good. The only two other Industrial Circus stores in the country still operating under Albertsons are the Albertsons in Anaheim and Helena.

Despite being wiped out, the bakery was still accessible as there were still other products for sale on this side of the store. The curved ceiling areas were added during the 70s remodel.

Only a few packages of cheese remained in the frozen foods and dairy aisle. The aisle and category markers are from the Premium Fresh & Healthy era, and were added at some point after Acme Style visited in 2011. They could be from the other Roxborough Acme on Ridge Avenue.

Nothing left at all in Lancaster Brand Meats. In the more deluxe version of this decor, the signage seen here would look more like this (though not with the bottom of the square hacked off).

Most of the remaining merchandise was consolidated into aisle 9, originally home of health and beauty products but also featuring Campbell's soup. The flooring, from the 80s remodel, has held up pretty well.

This was the best photo I could get of the grand aisle, showing the fresh deli and seafood/meat counter. Produce was on the same wall as the meat counter, with the farmstand signage remaining.

The signage in the window redirects shoppers to three other Acme locations in the city. The Ridge Avenue store is only about 3 miles away from this location, but due to average traffic it usually takes a while to get from one to the other.

The monument sign for the shopping center, which now has a blank space on top.

Other Images of Interest

Street View Images

2019

Before the center was remodeled, this store had a yellow color scheme. To see how it looked at some point in the 80s, click here. The current facade actually makes the store look smaller than it did back then.

Nearby competition

3.6 miles away: GIANT of Conshohocken

Next week, we're heading further up Ridge Avenue to the Conshohocken GIANT, a former Clemens store which has a history dating back to the mid 50s when it was a Penn Fruit. I'm assuming GIANT will keep this store open if/when they relocate to the former Acme spot, but I don't know for sure. I imagine this location would still be bigger even if they expanded further down the strip in Andorra.

3.9 miles away: Weis of Conshohocken

Across the street from the GIANT is Conshohocken's Weis, which is a former Genuardi's that reopened in 2012.

It's definitely unfortunate that Acme closed this location, but it was very small and outdated so I'm not shocked. While I wasn't able to make it to Milltown, you can see it in better times by touring it with The Market Report here. I wish all the employees of both stores good luck. Thank you for reading, and see you next week! Sincerely, The Retail Connection.