Grand Opening of Lawsons at 1426 Oberlin Ave. – April 1965

Lawson's convenience stores has been a favorite topic on this blog, amassing twenty posts over the last 16 years. We all have our favorite memories of the ubiquitous store chain, including its Big-O Orange Juice, its famous Lawson's Chip Dip, and the great selection of lunch meat (such as chipped chopped ham, dutch loaf, etc.) available in the well-stocked, well-lit stores.

We each have our own favorite location that we frequented as well. For the Bradys, it was the one on Oberlin Avenue near W. 30th Street – where we might would stop if we needed some lunch meat in between our weekly grocery shopping trips. But no matter which location you went to, you could be assured of a clean store with quality items on its shelves.

I've posted some grand openings of specific stores before, and here's another one: the store at 1426 Oberlin Avenue, right across from the Lorain Creamery. The ad at the top of this post appeared in the Journal on April 1, 1965.

It was kind of an aggressive move, locating a store specializing in milk right across from a hometown dairy. But most of the popular items that the convenience store carried weren't available at the Creamery anyway. 

The Lawson's chain was later acquired by Dairy Mart, and it appears that the store at 1426 Oberlin Avenue was involved. But at some point – either when the store possibly decided to end its affiliation with the chain, or when Dairy Mart was closing a massive number of stores during its bankruptcy – the store became Daily Mart.

Hey, at least the new name fit on the existing Dairy Mart sign perfectly.