Meyer Goldberg Promotion: Win a Mercury Comet – January 1965

If you grew up or lived in Lorain in the 1960s or 70s, then you probably spent some, or perhaps most, of your grocery dollars at one of the Meyer Goldberg stores. 

Living on the west side, we shopped at the store on Oberlin Avenue. It looked very different architecturally from the typical national chains (such as A&P), which tended to occupy space in the huge shopping centers being built at that time.

But it didn't start out as a Meyer Goldberg location. It was originally built to be Jay's Sparkle Market, operated by pioneer grocer Jay Jursinski. Here's the full-page ad that ran in the Journal on May 2, 1962.

But by January 1964, the store had become the third outlet in the Meyer Goldberg chain. It was announced very quietly in this ad, which ran on January 1, 1964.

A year later in January 1965, Meyer Goldberg celebrated the one-year anniversary of his new store on Oberlin Avenue with a very creative promotion: the opportunity to win a 1965 Mercury Comet, "built in Lorain by Lorain people."

Here's the promotional spread that ran in the Journal on January 12, 1965.

A few days later this article provided some of the details of the remodeling of the Oberlin Avenue store, as well as shining the light on some of the personnel working behinds the scene, including stockholder Jay Jursinski.

So who won the Comet? I knew you were going to wonder, so here is the announcement of the winner, which ran as part of a store ad on February 24, 1965.

Meyer Goldberg Ad – August 1, 1962

On Monday I posted a late July 1962 Polansky's Market ad featuring a whole lot of meat.

Well here's another full-page ad loaded with meat from that same time period, for another well-remembered local store that also wasn't part of a national chain: Meyer Goldberg. At that time the store on Oberlin Avenue wasn't open yet; Meyer Goldberg wouldn't take over the building that was briefly home to the new Jay's Sparkle Market until late 1965.

It's a funny ad, with its generic clown theme. Decades before Stephen King introduced a truly terrifying, demonic clown in his novel It, the clowns in the Meyer Goldberg ad are still rather creepy – especially the trio.

What interesting about the ad is that Meyer Goldberg was so confident about his prices for certain items that he invited shoppers to compare them with other stores and write down their findings in a checklist printed in the ad. (Hey, there's two items that I eat regularly on that list: Dinty Moore Beef Stew and good old Spam Luncheon Meat.)

There wasn't any sort of guarantee that Meyer Goldberg's price would be lower, or any promise to match competitor's prices, but it was still a good gimmick and ahead of its time.

Meyer Goldberg’s First Super-Market Opens – August 29, 1951

Seventy years ago yesterday on August 29, 1951, Meyer Goldberg opened his very first supermarket in Lorain. It was located at 3810 Broadway, just across the street from the brand new A&P that had opened just a little more than a month before.

Above is the full-page ad that ran in the Lorain Journal on Monday, August 27, 1951.

The Meyer Goldberg store on Broadway was the first in a chain that would eventually include two other locations in Lorain (Oberlin Avenue and Oakwood Shopping Center), as well as stores in Elyria and North Ridgeville.

Any Lorainite over fifty probably has fond memories of the stores and the personalized service they were famous for.

An article (below) that ran in the Journal on August 29th, 1951 provides a nice description of the open house held on the eve of the store opening.

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Doors Open Today at New Supermarket

Throngs At New Store

Guests from as far west as Los Angeles, Calif., and as far north as Detroit, Mich., last night attended the open house at Meyer Goldberg’s super market, 38th and Broadway.

The open house, held for business people who played a role in construction of the new market, marked the culmination of two and one-half years of planning.

In this length of time, Goldberg and his wife, Mrs. Francis Goldberg have inspected outstanding markets all over the country. The best ideas of each have been incorporated in the new market.

The building, an 80 by 80 modernistic structure, contains refrigerated equipment which came from Los Angeles. Representatives of the refrigerating firm, contractors, businessmen, and others connected with the construction of the new market were on hand last night.

Guests came from Cleveland, all parts of Ohio and several from Michigan in addition to those who came from Detroit.

Today souvenirs and free samples were handed out as the market got off to its regular seven-day routine of 8 a. m. to 10 p. m. store hours.

Goldberg and his wife are directing the entire operation and have a staff of 25 to serve the public. The owners of the new market have a lengthy background of personalized grocery service in this area. Goldberg’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Phillip Goldberg, established their first store in Lorain on 13th-st. The family came to Lorain in 1921.

Goldberg, with the exception of his college years and four years of army service, has been in Lorain for the past 30 years. Since he graduated from Western Reserve pharmacist school and served as a pharmacist in the army, he has incorporated a large drug department in the new super market.

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Meyer Goldberg Supermarkets have been a favorite topic on this blog. 

Posts include a 1962 Meyer Goldberg ad featuring Huckleberry Hound; an appearance by Ghouldardi at the Broadway and Oakwood Plaza stores in 1963; one devoted to the chain’s 15th anniversary in 1966; a then-and-now photo study of the store on Oberlin Avenue; and a few of my own reminisces about shopping at the Oberlin Avenue store.

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Today, the original 3810 Broadway Meyer Goldberg store is home to Dollar General. The building has been expanded and remodeled over the years.

Meyer Goldberg’s 15th Anniversary – November 1966

Well, Thanksgiving is almost here – and for most of us that means a trip to the grocery store in preparation for it. For many Lorainites back in the 1960s, that meant a trip to one of Meyer Goldberg’s grocery stores.

Here then is a short interview with Meyer Goldberg himself at the time of the 15th anniversary of his first store. It ran in the Lorain Journal on Thursday, November 3, 1966. It includes a nice capsule history of the store chain that many of our mothers (including mine) shopped at.

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Meyer Goldberg’s 15th Anniversary

(Note: Philip and Rebecca Goldberg first came to Lorain in 1921 with one daughter, Annette, and five sons, David, William, Marvin, Hyman and Meyer. The children all helped in five small Goldberg neighborhood grocery stores. Fifteen years ago, son Meyer constructed and opened his first large Meyer Goldberg store at 3810 Broadway. Today, he employs 250 full and part time workers in four supermarkets. Here he answers four questions on the development of his Lorain County chain.

Question: How come you decided to celebrate on the 15th anniversary of your first store?

Answer: Fifteen years is a long time – and I decided I wanted to show my appreciation to the people who have supported me and made all this possible. I’m humble and grateful.

Q. You keep saying that the people in Lorain County have helped you help them. What do you mean?

A. I mean simply that as more and more people came to patronize my stores, I learned how to reduce costs, buy in volume and pass on the savings to the customer. In fairness, I must admit I couldn’t have done it without my fine co-workers in the stores – nor without the great number of people who came to buy.

Q. You now claim that you are able to bring fine merchandise to people in Lorain County at a low cost. How do you do it?

A. It’s very easy. We have been able to give people a greater variety of goods because we have utilized every modern technique of merchandising – quantity buying, cost control, promotion and personal observation. We not only attend sales seminars on merchandising, but we send our people to learn. We try to be part of the community. Because of cost accounting alone, we have been able to lower 4,000 items.

Q. How does a store become a part of the community?

A. You participate with the community in worthwhile activities, such as charity drives. We try to help any church without a redemption program. We give any church back one percent of the total sales that people deposit in a special box. We have bake sales. And I started the Cystic Fibrosis program in Lorain.

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For more Meyer Goldberg memories, revisit my 2011 post entitled (appropriately enough) Meyer Goldberg Memories.

Ghoulardi at Meyer Goldberg's – Nov. 7, 1963

Today's a big day in local pop culture history. It was November 7, 1963 – 50 years ago today – that Ghoulardi  made live appearances in Lorain at the two Meyer Goldberg supermarkets.

Ghoulardi, of course, was the popular late night TV movie host character played by Ernie Anderson on WJW Channel 8 in Cleveland from 1963 to 1966.

(Here's a link to a great article written by John Petkovic of The Plain Dealer about the 50th anniversary celebrated earlier this year of Ghoulardi going on the air, complete with some great clips.)

What was Ghoulardi's visit to Lorain like? Here's how The Journal reported it the next day on November 8, 1963.

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Ghoulardi 'Knifs' His Way Through Thousands In City

Ghoulardi visited Lorain last night and had to "knif" his way through the crowds that turned out to meet him.

The Pied Piper of TV reportedly met an estimated crowd of 10,000 at the Meyer Goldberg Supermarket in the Oakwood Plaza Shopping Center and another 5,000 at the Meyer Goldberg Supermarket on S. Broadway.

Youngsters climbed on every available step and even hung from the tops of cars to get a look at one of the hottest personalities in the entertainment field in this area.

The situation got so hot that even Ghouldardi was unable to "cool it with the boom-boom" and Lorain police, sheriff's department units and state patrol cars were called out to help control traffic.

Goldberg reported that all autographed photographs of Ghoulardi were used up. More copies will be available to parents next week at Goldberg's stores, he said. He also said efforts will be made to bring Ghoulardi back for a return engagement.

Although the crowd was generally well-behaved, two persons reported damage to their cars and youngsters even climbed on a Lorain police cruiser to get a look at Ghoulardi. The cruiser was also damaged.

Charles A. Dalton, 30, of 4504 Maple Rd., and Larry L. Cordova, 18, of 1620 E. 29th St., reported dents and scratches in the roofs of their cars made by children climbing on them.

One of the cars had its front license and the radio aerial torn off.

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Courtesy Cleveland.com

Being born in 1959, I don't remember Ghoulardi; instead, my brothers and I watched and enjoyed the Ghoul on Channel 61 in the early 1970s– which was basically Ghoulardi as performed by Ron Sweed, Ernie Anderson's intern. I had no idea that that Ghoulardi even existed until my older brother told me about him.

(Click here to visit the Ghoul's website.)

And of course we watched Hoolihan and Big Chuck (at left), the successor show to Ghoulardi. If you've never read "Big Chuck" Schodowski's book– Big Chuck! My Favorite Stories from 47 Years on Cleveland TV – be sure to read it. It's a terrific, fun book and a must-have for fans of the show.

Before it was Meyer Goldberg's...

Here's something I didn't know.

I always thought that the Meyer Goldberg's on Oberlin Avenue was the original tenant of this distinctive building that so many of us spent so much time in through the years.

Not so, according to this April 29, 1962 photo and caption from the Lorain Journal. It was originally built as a Jay's Sparkle Market.

I don't have an exact date, but by late 1965 Meyer Goldberg had taken over the location.

Portion of 1965 showing store locations

And here's a photo of what the building looks like today as a Family Dollar store.

Thinking back, I think my mother shopped for food wherever she could save the most money. Through the years, she shopped for groceries at many different places, including A&P (remember Ann Page products?), Krogers, Meyer Goldberg's, various Sparkle Markets and Edward's Food Warehouse.

As a side note, when I lived in Columbus during my OSU years in the late 1970's, the only grocery store I remember shopping at occasionally was Big Bear – including the chain's original store near Ohio Stadium. Unfortunately that chain is now in permanent hibernation.

Meyer Goldberg Memories

One of the businesses that will probably forever remain synonymous with Lorain is the fondly-remembered Meyer Goldberg chain of grocery stores.

Unlike its competition such as A&P, Meyer Goldberg was just a local chain – but I never noticed the difference when I was a kid. In fact, the store on Oberlin Avenue that we went to was impressive to me, because it was a large standalone store with its own parking lot (which is definitely the preferred trend nowadays for supermarkets).

Meyer Goldberg himself only passed away back on February 1, 2005 at the age of 93. A feature article about his passing on the front page of the Morning Journal written by Scott Patsko had a nice summary of the chain's history, from which I distilled the information that follows.

Meyer Goldberg's parents had already been in the grocery business with their Goldberg Food Stores. He opened his own store back in 1951 on Broadway, and added a second one in 1962 at Oakwood Shopping Center. Later the chain expanded to include more locations, including Oberlin Avenue in Lorain (the one we went to), as well as Elyria, North Ridgeville and Sheffield Township.

Here's a newspaper ad from April 9, 1958 – back when there was just one store in the chain.

Unfortunately, by the end of the 1970's, Goldberg was forced to file for bankruptcy. He ended up filing lawsuits against Pick-N-Pay and Fisher Foods, as he believed they had conspired to put him out of business. (You can read some of the legal documents here and here.) Both companies, along with Stop-N-Shop, were eventually charged with price fixing and forced to make restitution to area customers.

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I just remember the Meyer Goldberg store on Oberlin Avenue store as being very spacious, clean and easy to navigate – perfect for grabbing what you need quickly. (Nowadays, some grocery stores are so huge that you can get despondent just trying to find what you're looking for.)

I also remember the red tinted light bulbs that lit up the meat department displays (they certainly made the hamburger look even better), and the great submarine sandwiches that they sold there, with lots of hard salami in them.

Here's what the Oberlin Avenue store looks like now. Remember the old US Postal sub-station on the side?

And here's the South Broadway store. Until recent years, it had been an ALDI store.

It's strange that the two remaining Meyer Goldberg buildings in Lorain both house dollar stores!

Although Meyer Goldberg supermarkets are long gone, Fligner's Market on Broadway continues the legacy of a locally owned and operated grocery store in Lorain.

Meyer Goldberg Ad Featuring Huckleberry Hound

Portion of a October 3, 1962 Meyer Goldberg ad from the Lorain Journal

I saw this great ad on microfilm the other day at the library, and had to post part of it here. It's from October of 1962, and combines a great Lorain memory – Meyer Goldberg super markets – and one of my favorite cartoon characters: Huckleberry Hound! (Give it a click for a closer look.)

Longtime Lorainites fondly remember grocery shopping at Meyer Goldberg's. In 1962, the chain was still in its infancy, consisting of only two stores – one on South Broadway and one at Oakwood Plaza. (I'll do a proper treatment of the store in a future blog series.)

But getting back to our old pal Huck. The cartoon hound was created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera and was their first major TV star. The Huckleberry Hound Show debuted in 1958 and was sponsored by Kellogg's cereals. It was the first cartoon to win an Emmy award.

In 1962, Huck was still enormously popular with adults as well as kids. Consequently, Kellogg's used him and Yogi Bear in promotional campaigns that played out on the backs of Kelloggs cereal boxes, national magazine ads and super market newspaper ads, as shown here.

Note that the Meyer Goldberg ad also has a strange little SOS circle logo to the right of Huck. SOS stood for Sabin Oral Sunday and referred to a campaign at that time which encouraged people to get their three doses of the Sabin oral polio vaccine. You can read more about it here.

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Huck and Yogi were pretty big in our house while I was growing up – we watched the cartoons regularly (I still do, on DVD) – so I can't resist posting this photo.

It's probably the oldest of all my personal possessions: a Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear ramp walker made by Marx©. According to this ramp walker website, it dates from 1962 – same as the above ad.

I've had this toy all my life and looking at it brings back a flood of happy childhood memories.

I'll wrap up this post with a look at the closing credits of the original Huckleberry Hound Show, where Huck and Cornelius the Rooster pick up all of the Kellogg's cereal characters (Snap, Crackle & Pop, Tony the Tiger, Tony Junior, Smaxey the Seal, and Sugar Pops Pete) in their jalopy.