Moultrie - Moultrie, GA
Moultrie
Food Store | Deli
Moultrie, GA 31768
One Stop
Scroll Down for my More Than Convenience post on Sylvester's former Harveys
Welcome back to The Sing Oil Blog! The last several weeks have been a bit chaotic for me (hence the several delayed posts), but I've still managed to find time here and there to concoct some content for you to consume. After my last few posts covering various forms of Publix and Winn-Dixie (with a few Ann Page spices thrown in), I figured it was prudent that I circled back to the core focus of this blog: Sing Oil Company. In addition to my convenience coverage, we'll get to snort our way through what is potentially the only surviving example of a pre-Delhaize Harveys interior.
Both the Sing and the Supermarket we'll be looking at today were brought to my attention by Henry H., similar to the former Troy Sing I shared last year. Considering I've been to Moultrie many times, I'm a bit ashamed that I didn't come across this store myself; however, it happens to be hidden just off the major thoroughfares of Veterans Parkway (the 319 bypass) and South Main Street at the corner of 5th Street SE and 26th Avenue SE.
Unfortunately, I don't know much about this store other than the fact that it was built during the mid-1980's. The Colquitt County tax records point to a completion date in 1986, but I'm inclined to say this store is from either 1984 or early 1985 since it still features the two windows behind the cashier counter that are absent from later stations like Laurel or Tallahassee #12. I guess most of that will just remain a mystery until I find some old issues of The Moultrie Observer!
Update (12/16/23): after a tip regarding a new newspaper database resource, I was able to discover that this station operated as a Snappy Sac convenience store in 1986, and Holiday Market #352 in 1990. With that knowledge, and the lack of any results for a 1980's Sing in The Moultrie Observer, I'm inclined to say that this location never operated as a Sing. The newspaper only leads to more questions than answers!
It looks like the Snappy Sac held its grand opening on August 22, 1986, which lines up with the Colquitt County tax records. Does that mean Snappy Sac ripped off a Sing convenience store design? Did Sing buy the land and draw up the station plans only to back out before construction was completed? This is reminding me a lot of Columbus #9 in that the station is designed and laid out exactly to Sing specifications, but it would appear Sing never ran this store. Snappy Sac even advertised its "Food & Deli"!
What I do know is that this was one of several locations Sing quietly offloaded from its books leading up to the 1990 Amoco acquisition. Most of these stores were fairly new at the time but were in smaller towns and / or just a little off the beaten path. I'm presuming that they weren't performing up to the standards of what a company like Amoco wanted to see during the due diligence process and were dumped to make overall revenues more appealing (Hmm, that sounds like something Southeastern Grocers did several years ago . . .).
Let's dive into this old Sing!
Similar to the Belk store across the street, the exterior of this former Sing looks like it is a bit past its prime; however, it is also the only store I can think of which hasn't had its corduroy concrete exterior painted! This may very well be the most pristine example of a Sing exterior out there, but I have to say that it looks much drabber without Sing's signature yellow signage.
It's also worth noting that while the original black shingles have been replaced by a shade of brown, this store still sports the same mansard awning Sing was fond of.
What's even better is how the original florescent light trough around the eves of the awning remains intact. Unfortunately, the ice freezer blocks our view of the old gas payment window.
Stepping inside, we are greeted by a familiar layout (and some blurry photos thanks to me still not being comfortable photographing small convenience stores). This store now has its aisles rotated to be perpendicular to the cashier counter rather than the door, but that likely allows for more usable salesfloor space.
Off to the right, we can see the small partition dividing Sing's old dining nook from the rest of the convenience store.
Looking back toward the register from one of the aisles, we see the cashier counter (along with its original soffit) staring us straight in the face. Take a look at my Bradfordville post if you need a refresher on this mid-1980's store design's original layout.
Taking things a bit wider, we basically see how this store was out of a lot of candy at the time I visited—at least I didn't have to run off empty handed.
Turning to the right, we see this store's added beer cave, along with some coolers in the distance that look like they may be original to the mid-1980's. While I didn't get a picture of it, there was an additional rolling Pepsi refrigerator or two to the left of the coolers on the far wall (where Sing would've stocked its snacks).
I recently intended to go back and photograph that corner of the store; however, I chickened out at the last minute when I drove by and there were literally zero cars around. It sounds silly that I'm skeptical to walk in a store that lacks people, but I suppose I thought the absence of everybody could indicate something nearly as bad as the presence of people who I don't want to encounter. In retrospect, I'm more inclined to believe that the lack of people is indicative of Sing's poor placement of this store rather than its overall safety (or lack thereof).
Our parting shot showcases this store's wide selection of "bingo" machines occupying Sing's old dining nook. Until next time, Moultrie! Today could be the day!
Back outside, we find the lonely gas island consisting of two pea-green pumps. According to satellite imagery, the structure of the canopy over the left pump appears to date back to this store's construction (well, except for the roof that was blown out several years ago). The tiny area only allowed for two cars, which seems to indicate that Sing knew this wouldn't be a high-volume location (and also could help explain why Sing sold the station off before the Amoco merger). On the other hand, that makes me wonder why Sing would intentionally build a store in a lower volume location just to turn around and sell it a few years later.
Before we head up to Sylvester, I figure I might as well mention a few of Moultrie's other retail oddities.
Courtesy Charles Burgess Jr (Flickr) - Former Harveys #1615 / #2327 / Walmart #952 - June 10, 2013
Our first stop will be Moultrie's former Harveys Supermarket. Southeastern Grocers closed this store back in 2018, and it is one I would have loved to photograph. I'd be really curious to see how the space was adapted from Wal-Mart's time here (1986-1997), especially considering that the building was not formally subdivided during Harveys' tenure. A Piggly Wiggly currently occupies this space, while Citi Trends eventually carved out a façade and built out the left side of the former Wal-Mart.
Courtesy Charles Burgess Jr (Flickr) - Former Winn-Dixie #101 - October 12, 2011
Next, we'll jump across 1st Avenue SE to see Moultrie's old Winn-Dixie. I believe WD closed this location in 2013 following the Harveys acquisition, which isn't surprising considering the aforementioned store across the street. This space has since been taken over by Tractor Supply, but still features a rather unique variant of a 1990's Marketplace façade.
Update (12/16/2023): This Winn-Dixie set up shop in Moultrie's former Kmart after moving from the circa 1979 store at the south end of the shopping center. The store held it's grand opening on February 8, 1996. This center was also previously home to a Revco pharmacy.
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| Courtesy Steven Gregory (Google Maps) - October 2022 |
Finally, I might as well mention the fact that Moultrie has a Publix. I've never been inside the store, but it is just your run of the mill Sienna-build 45M that has been remodeled to Evergreen. The thing that makes this store interesting, though, it how it is what I consider to be the company's first foray into a random rural Georgia town since the Statesboro fiasco in the mid-1990's. Notably, this is one of only nine Publix stores in South Georgia (the others being in Albany (2), Valdosta (2), Brunswick, Kingsland, Thomasville, and Tifton), but it likely paved the way for number ten which is about to open in the similarly secluded town of Douglas. I guess this store must do alright, but it still seems to me like there must be some reason Publix came here before even thinking about similar towns like Americus, Bainbridge, or Waycross. It also seems coincidental that nearby Thomasville received a brand-new store only a year prior . . .
Keep on scrolling to check out the Sylvester Piggly Wiggly / former Harveys Supermarket.
Street Views
Aerial Views
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| Historic Aerials - 1983 Future site of the Moultrie Sing Store |
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| Google Earth - January 1993 Former Moultrie Sing Store and original pump canopy |
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| Google Earth - May 2019 Former Moultrie Sing Store with expanded pump canopy |
A Pig from the Past
Now that we've explored the ghost of Sing past, let's trot on up Highway 33 to see what kind of pork I got myself into.
Former Harveys #??
Sylvester Plaza
Sylvester, GA 31791
Snipes Piggly Wiggly
Part of me feels bad for not featuring a More than Convenience store in Colquitt County, but the other part of me still wants to share this store and doesn't care what the nagging half has to say. Regardless, today's feature will take us to Colquitt County's neighbor to the North: Worth County.
Sylvester is a town of roughly 6,000 people and is claimed to be the "Peanut Capital of the World". Some might consider Sylvester's North-to-South corridor of SR 33 to be little more than a pig trail, but the bulk of the traffic in town flows across US Highway 82 / Georgia 520 from Tifton to Albany. Since I love random facts myself, SR 520 is designated as "Corridor Z" (for reasons that still aren't entirely clear for me) granting it the rare privilege of boasting a green state highway sign for its entire route (except for the times when somebody in the sign department had a mess up, or just decided to be inconsistent).
The town is also home to a vintage locomotive that always captures my attention as I drive by. The train was formerly owned by the Georgia - Ashburn - Sylvester - Camilla Railroad (G.A.S. & C.) which was organized in May 1922 by J. N. Pidcock.
Thanks to a sign posted at the site, I learned that, "Old Engine 100 is a 1930 steam locomotive that ran the rails of the G.A.S. & C. Railway from 1930 to 1948 until she was replaced with the next generation of trains — The Diesel . . . The G.A.S. & C. Railway originally purchased the engine from the Baldwin Locomotive Company for $40,000."
The engine was donated to the city in 1957 and arrived at its current location in December 1959.
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| The Sing Oil Sidekick says this road sign has "devil eyes" – what are your thoughts? |
The Pig we'll pick through today is located just to the East of the old train on Highway 82 in a shopping center that was formerly also anchored by a TG&Y Family Center (Now Farmers Home Furniture) as well as a Revco drug store (now O'Reilly Auto Parts). According to the Worth County Property Records, the Village Shopping Center began construction in 1978, but it looks like the original TG&Y, Revco, and Piggly Wiggly Southern stores opened in 1979.
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| The Sylvester Local News (Community History Archive) -August 5, 1992 |
Update (12/17/2023): Harveys moved into the Piggly Wiggly Southern space on August 5, 1992, following the acquisition of a several stores from Bruno's. It appears that this was one of the first of many selloffs the Alabama chain would partake in following the 1991 plane crash that killed the majority of the company's executives. Many more former Bruno's properties would become Harveys stores over the years, including Thomasville's former FoodMax.
It's also worth noting that the Harveys this store would ultimately replace remained open for "an unspecified period of time" following the Piggly Wiggly conversion. That older store was since converted into a Fred's and is now a gym.
Harveys vacated from this roughly 24,000 sq ft space in the early-2000's following Delhaize's acquisition of the chain.
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| The Sylvester Local News (Community History Archive) - October 15, 2003 |
From the look of the sign out front, this store is likely showing its age on the inside . . .
Without further ado, let's root on through those swinging doors and take a peek inside. I'll also note that I took these photos in December so don't give the pig too much grief for the wreath!
Stepping inside (and onto the "magic carpet" under the swinging doors), we are greeted by Glenn's Corner Pharmacy which appears to be an independent Health Mart pharmacy that even features its own shelving and aisle signs. Does the signage remind anybody else of a bank?
I can undoubtedly say that I've never seen a chamber pot for sale in a supermarket, which goes to show just how independent this place seems to be! I guess they have all of their bases covered if the Pig ever sells some bad meat!
One thing that really caught my attention was the presence of these dump bins up front because they happen to look familiar. Recognize the font? There's no doubt in my mind that these were made by Southeastern Grocers, and it seems logical that Piggly Wiggly picked them up after SEG closed this Harveys' replacement back in 2018. It was just odd to see current Harveys fixtures in a store that hasn't carried the name in over 20-years!
The floor tiles in that store were chaotic, to say the least, but I suppose they aren't the reason I stopped in. Heading over to the produce department, we see the reason why I came here: Harveys Grid.
You may have noticed that the interior looks a tad different than the pictures I've linked to in other posts, and that's because I'm almost certainly Piggly Wiggly has modified these signs in some form or fashion. The produce department seems to be the only section which still uses Harveys' signature green background.
I initially thought this store always featured this alternate color palette since this store predates the Delhaize acquisition (hence why this store moved to a former Food Lion), but upon close inspection, I saw what I thought were marks of paint bleed that I wouldn't expect in a mass-produced supermarket décor, even from a regional chain like Harveys.
I can also understand why Piggly Wiggly would have painted the neon yellow trim red to make the signs blend into the independent's branding.
Fun fact: Harveys even used a version of the Grid décor on its semi-trailers.
Turning toward the rest of the meat department, we see a nice combination of Aldi-style freezers and 1980's-sytle meat coolers.
What's even better are the various stock photos placed throughout the store. I just wish I knew whether these were original to Harveys or installed by the Pig.
Courtesy cjaynes92 (Flickr) - Former Harveys #1608 - Dawson, GA - September 17, 2018
I may never know for sure, but this picture of the former Harveys in Dawson shows that the package did feature stock photos at some point. The fact that the pictures in the Dawson store, however, feature a grid overlay seems to indicate that the original Sylvester images have been replaced at some point over the last two decades.
Here's crjaynes92's full album of the antiquated Dawson store shortly before it closed in 2018. I wouldn't be surprised if that was one of Harveys' smallest stores at the time, considering the building started off as a 1950's Big Star (if I remember correctly).
Oh well, the Pig has at least kept the original spirit of this package alive (along with adding some matching Christmas decorations).
Aisle 6 offers shoppers the chance to take home a plethora of baking supplies and spices—I just wonder why there appears to have been a run on sugar.
There were thankfully only 4-5 other customers in the store to hinder my experience, but several employees were wandering around stocking shelves. I also walked around that entire store and couldn't find any French Fried onions!
SEG may have quit Sylvester cold turkey (which I learned, thanks to my trivia night several weeks ago, was used to mean a person was guilty back in the 1920's), but the Pig is still packing poultry in some very vintage coffin coolers. This one was placed next to the endcap for either aisle 6 or 7.
Aisle 8 had snacks, toilet tissue, and other paper products.
Anonymous in Houston may bash the soft drink selection at Publix, but it seems this store had an even smaller selection (or just had a run on Diet Coke—nothing does a better job of warming your soul than a nice eggnog and bourbon mixed with a fizzy caramel-colored soft drink).
The leftmost wall of the store seemingly had to serve double duty advertising both the Frozen Foods department and the Dairy Products, despite the former being located on the interior of aisle 12.
Nonetheless, ice cream still made the cut for the stock photo sandwiched between the two signs, as it has the luxury of being both frozen and dairy. I wonder how many supermarkets (especially outside of the South) dedicate the time and space to make a category card for biscuits. Don't get me wrong, biscuits are totally Worth it, but I don't think that is something I've come across in another store.
As we progress toward the front of the store, we go from the morning juices toward the evening ones. Beer and wine occupy the front left corner of the store along with some NASCAR hoods and some historic photographs (which look like something straight out of Delhaize's late-2000's playbook). Now I wish I had taken a straight on picture of the beer cooler to see what the stock photo behind the Budweiser mountains depicted.
The front speedway doesn't offer us many more surprises . . .
Other than some checkout conveyor belts that I'm pretty sure came from an old Winn-Dixie. I don't have the time to look through all of my old pictures, but I feel like The Beef People used this exact same model in Marketplace stores across the Southeast, just with light blue accents rather than the red we see here. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if Piggly Wiggly picked these up at a Winn-Dixie auction somewhere, which is likely the reason I took this picture in the first place! (Again, that's the problem with writing a post nearly a year after you have visited a store)
I noted shortly after I photographed this store that, "The checkout lanes were almost certainly from a Marketplace Winn-Dixie and had been painted red. Much of the red paint had rubbed off where the groceries waiting to be bagged are placed, revealing the same teal I've seen in plenty of old WD stores."
To close out our tour, I snapped one last picture of the tile on the windowsill of the store. I have no clue who installed it, but it looked vintage, and the green seemed like something Harveys could have picked if / when they built this location. I suppose that may remain a mystery!
That will conclude this visit to the vintage Sylvester Pig, and I'll close out this section with a nice picture of the store along with the adjacent former Revco space (which opened on 11/8/1979; thanks Henry H. for reminding me of that tidbit).
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| The Sylvester Local News (Community History Archive) - August 4, 1993 |
Update (12/17/2023): I'd also like to point out Sylvester's second Harveys which replaced the store we visited. That location replaced a Food Lion that opened on August 11, 1993, during Delhaize's big push into bad real estate placements across the Southeast.
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| The Sylvester Local News (Community History Archive) - December 10, 2003 |
Food Lion went on to expand the space and reconfigure the store's entryway during its 10-year tenure, which means this location must have been more successful than originally thought.
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| Courtesy Charles Burgess Jr (Flickr) - Former Harveys #1647 / #2381 / Food Lion #1258 - June 17, 2013 |
The 1990's Food Lions I've come across are notorious for having a central vestibule with two banks of windows (check out this post for more details). I was perplexed when I first saw this store because it didn't fit that mold, until I zoomed into Charles' picture and noticed the bricks under the two leftmost sets of windows don't match those on the rest of the building. Take those away, and we can clearly see the typical Food Lion vestibule left behind on the right. It's also worth noting that Harveys added a pharmacy in 2006 (notice how the pharmacy sign is newer than the repurposed Food Lion deli and bakery lettering). This store has, unsurprisingly, been taken over by a Tractor Supply.
My oh my, how gas was so much cheaper in December of last year; if only it wasn't $1.10 more expensive when I filled up my car earlier this week! I remember $2.28 being a bit of an outlier even last December; however, I'd still guess many areas had gas for $2.50 back then. At least this road trip proved to be cheaper than many I've taken since.
That will conclude this week's post, but make sure to check back soon for my next adventure.
Until then,
- The Sing Oil Blogger
Additional Resources:
Sing Parcel ID: M041 003A