Hanging Out Around Chester and a Trip to KOP
Howdy folks! Today we're going to be hanging out around Delco for the most part, but I worked a visit to King of Prussia Mall in here as well.
Zac's is sort of a local legend in the burger world. They have three regular locations around Delco, one in the Eagles stadium, and two food trucks. This was their original location, which opened in 1984. The building certainly looks older though. It almost looks like an old Phillips 66 Station, but I'm assuming it was always some kind of burger stand.
Sunoco opened this location in the 60's, and closed in the mid-80's when they bought the Arco next door. It's been operating as a repair shop ever since. I'm willing to bet Sunoco removed the canopy and pumps before they sold it to keep competition from moving in, since they were so close.
Right next door to the old Sunoco is the new one. In late 2017, they rebranded this location to Conoco. They're new to market here, and have been aggressively expanding lately. I'm guessing they made the franchise here a sweet offer to get them to switch.
This is the same location I posted last week; just thought you guys would like to see the front of it. :) One key difference between this and last week's photo is that it is open for business now.
McDonald's opened here in the late 60's or early 70's, and had a massive remodel in the 80's which added two large glass atriums on the front and side of the restaurant. It was remodeled in 2019, which shaved off the side atrium and built out the front of the building over where the front atrium was. It contained a substantial amount of seating, so they didn't want to get rid of it entirely.
This is Swiss Farms' newest location, which was built in 2012 on the site of an old Getty station. It's also their only fully operational non-1960's store. Two of the other three newer ones that opened in the early 2000's closed, while the third now only does wholesale by appointment. To my knowledge, those are the only three that have failed, and also the only three that weren't in Delco. Coincidence? I think not. Drive-through dairies are a niche operation, and Delco people are... unique (I'm allowed to say that since my family's from here). I have to say I do really like their new design. I'm curious if they'll replace any of their older locations with ones like these.
I am amazed at how long this has survived without an exterior remodel. It even still has the original 70's pylon sign! The interior was remodeled in 2012, at which point the building sign was changed from white to red lettering, but other than that nothing's happened out here since around 1990.
Sunoco opened here in the 60's, and subdivided the property in the 70's. They built a new convenience store next to the gas pumps, and sold this building off. It's been a laundromat for years now.
Here's the other half of that station. It became a Citgo after Sunoco closed (most likely in the early 90's). It's still open and selling gas, but no longer has a brand affiliation.
A&P closed here in the 80's, and was split between Family Dollar on the left and Rite Aid on the right. Rite Aid moved to a freestanding store nearby in 2007 (we'll see that later in today's post), and Family Dollar moved over to Rite Aid's side of the store, which I presume was a little larger. To see it beforehand, and catch a glimpse of the A&P labelscar, see this 2009 picture.
Soft Cloth closed in 2013 and sat empty for a while. Plans were announced in 2016 that AutoZone would be opening on the site, and at this point I was wondering what was taking them so long. Construction finally started in late 2018, and Auto Zone was open by the following Spring.
I've sorta been following construction on this Taco Bell over the past few years. It opened in 2017 on the site of a KFC/Taco Bell combo.
I swung by the JCP closing sale at King of Prussia. Not much left aside from fixtures at this point. They were all expensive too, which I guess was good for Penney's but means I couldn't get anything neat.
The roof's starting to go up! I think these photos were taken a little less than a week after my last visit.
This opened no later than the 30's, before American Stores changed their name to ACME. I couldn't find an exact date for then the stores changed names, since the company still did business under that name until Albertsons bought them out in 1999. Regardless, I'm assuming this location was rebranded to ACME before they moved out. If anybody's curious, here's a very detailed history of the company up through 1990 I found. This location closed in the early 60's when the Woodlyn location opened. It later became a Thrift Drug, which Eckerd bought in 1997. It closed not long after, and has been operating as Dollar Magic ever since.
This was Wawa's third location (as of yet I still haven't tracked down where store #2 was). It opened in the mid-60's and closed when a replacement was built down the road in 2008. It's been vacant ever since. More recently, the stone facing was removed and utility connections marked out on the parking lot, making me think there were plans to tear this down that never came to fruition. As you can tell by the mismatched stone, it was expanded a few times- twice on the right and once on the left
When Penn Liberty was bought out by WSFS, they didn't take this location due to its proximity to a brand-new WSFS. Its location on a mostly residential street didn't help either. After sitting vacant for a few years, WSFS finally decided they might as well do something with the building and turned it into an employee training center. As part of this project, they also chopped down the clock tower but for whatever reason kept the Drive-Thru awning.
This location opened in 2017 on part of what was once the site of a public housing complex. The rest of the site was developed into a charter school. It's an odd pairing.
I'm gonna be totally honest here, I was lost when I took this photo and haven't been able to figure out where this place is. The photos before and after this in my camera roll are both of the Rite Aid, so I thought it would be somewhere near there, but it also has the decorative sidewalk lights only really seen in the more downtown areas.
Update: I found it. Time has not treated it well, the top of the facade has since collapsed, wiping out the building's name.
Rite Aid opened this store in 2007, replacing the location in the former A&P seen earlier in this post. I think their original motivation for coming up here was to be closer to the Chester Community Hospital. That closed a few years later. At least they got a Drive-Thru out of it. :P
I believe KFC closed here in the 90's. It operated as Fannie Mae's Southern market for a while, which closed in 2010. The most recent streetview shows it brightly repainted with a sign for a daycare out, but the windows are all still boarded up. Either they were still in the process of outfitting the space or they don't trust kids with windows. I don't think it's something that opened and closed again, since it looks like they have the exact same boards as they do here.
This became a Shop N Bag after Penn Fruit went under in the late 70's, which was the only supermarket left in the city by the time it closed around 2000. Family Dollar took the left half of the store shortly afterwards, and the right sat vacant up until 2014. The right side became Fare & Square, a nonprofit grocery store run by a local food bank, who if I'm understanding correctly only accepted EBT and food stamps as payment. It was a nice idea, but apparently a terrible store. They closed by 2017. In 2018, the space then became Cousin's Fresh Market, a Philly-based chain of smaller supermarkets that operate primarily in rough neighborhoods (Not to be confused with Cousin's Market, which is the exact same thing but a different company- the only difference between the two is that the Fresh chain is growing while the non-Fresh one has closed most of their locations in the past couple years).
Getty took over most former Flying A stations, but somehow Gulf wound up with this instead. I didn't catch the sign in the picture, but Gulf was still using the round Flying A frame until the end here. Despite the ancient pumps, Gulf was still open until around 2010. More recently, the pumps and underground tank have been removed.
This is one of Chester's most magnificent abandoned buildings (the old Presbyterian Church [seen below], masonic lodge, old City Hall, and Pulaski Junior High are all on par). It was built approximately 1920, housing the Knights of Columbus on the upper floors and Pep Boys on the ground level. By the 90's, both were closed and the building has sat empty ever since.
This building is by far the most impressive building in Chester, abandoned or not. It was built as Third Presbyterian Church in 1895, and closed in 1991 after merging with the First Presbyterian Church of Chester (I guess they then averaged out to Second?); from the looks of it, there appears to currently be only one Presby church left in Chester, so I would assume this churches successor got merged into that more recently. After Third left, the building housed Chester Eastside Ministries, which closed around 2010. There were plans to demolish the building in 2013, since honestly Chester's probably not going to be making a rebound in the near future, but thankfully a local historic preservation group jumped in and bought it. They plan to restore it, but currently is still sits abandoned.
Today's song doesn't really relate to the post at all. I just can't stop listening to it. It's so good.
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