Rockbridge

July 15, 2021

Sing Food Store

4513 Rockbridge Road Southwest

Stone Mountain, GA 30083

The Rockbridge Road station was one of Sing Oil Company's early forays into the Atlanta convenience store market. Built around 1970, this store was most likely the third location in the Metro market, following Smyrna (1967) and Eastland Road (1969). This station was my last discovery of the Amoco merger acquisitions because there is a station a block away that mimics a late-'70s square location that looked like the "low hanging fruit." It wasn't until I stumbled across some environmental records listing the official address that I discovered my initial location was inaccurate. Soon after, I realized I had a historical picture of this location in my collection and all of the details matched precisely. I also found that Trikum and Rockbridge had a Carlson Cleaners in an adjacent storefront from the Amoco-Sing merger documents which also reinforces the location of the picture I found.

The first newspaper mention I found of this store was in a 1971 edition of The Atlanta Constitution. That classified ad refers to this station as the "Pinelake" location which makes sense because it is located adjacent to the city limits of DeKalb County's smallest municipality.

The Dekalb County property records mention the first sale on this property as January 1, 1977, which could have been a right-of-way sale or an inter-company transfer; however, neither a grantor nor a grantee are listed for this date. The records do show Sing Oil Company as the grantor for a Quit Claim deed to Dekalb County on September 12, 1990 which would have been a right-of-way grant. Details on this transaction are likely in the Amoco-Sing merger documents due to its close proximity to the closing date. Eventually, Amoco sold this station for $225,000 to an independent operator on April 17, 1995.

The Modern Convenience Store

The Rockbridge Texaco Food Mart, from Allgood Road - 2017

(Photo from Dekalb County Property Tax Records)

Currently, the station operates as a Texaco and looks like it has gone through few modifications since its Amoco days. The dry cleaners moved out and a braid salon now occupies the adjacent storefront. This station retains the original columns in front of the store and the diagonal wood paneling Sing added to the bottom windows in the 1980s. The original pump canopy looks like it was demolished in the 1990s to make way for a new combination gas pump setup.