Amherst Sparkle Market Opens – January 1969

From a 1957 ad

Here's a nice reminder of the days when Sparkle Markets had a strong presence in Northeast Ohio, and all of our mothers shopped there at some time or another. It’s the ad announcing the opening of the Amherst Sparkle Market, located near the intersection of Leavitt Road and Middle Ridge Road.

The ad ran in the Lorain Journal on January 15, 1969.

Note the ad even features good old Sparky, the grocery chain’s freckle-faced mascot. Sparky’s been featured on this blog many times.

In the Amherst ad, he looks like he’s finally grown up and become a “suit," (as opposed to his boyish appearance at right, whereas he looks more like a lowly stock boy).

Anyway, the Amherst store (according to an online source) lasted until the mid-1990s. It’s too bad that the chain is gone from Lorain County, as we could always use more choices when it comes to grocery shopping. (The Grafton Sparkle Market is not part of the official Sparkle chain.)

Today, however, the Sparkle chain survives. It continues to operate 19 Sparkle Markets across Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

Sparky’s still around as well on the Sparkle website, promoting Sparky’s e-Deals.

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Longtime blog contributor and researcher extraordinaire Dennis Thompson sent me this photo (below) of the Amherst Sparkle Market as it looked in 1963 when it was still part of the Food Fair chain. That's Leavitt Road in the foreground, with Middle Ridge on the left (coming from the east).

Dennis has contributed immensely to the VintageAerial website by identifying and posting the information for a countless number of previously unidentified Lorain County photos.

And since we now know what the Sparkle looked like before it was Sparkle, here's a Google Maps shot of the former grocery building in its most recent use as the home of On the Edge Honda.