By Carson Ellis
For the Independent
I have, for the most part, no timeline on G&H Foods.
Although a recent post of the building has given me a bit of a start. The G&H store was once located across the street roughly between the Brick, and the Pfieffer’s Music building.
One day/night, in 1982, they moved their store across the street into the building that comprises a bulk of the Stettler Home Hardware building.
Not to be confused with Stettler Home Building, which sits in a former grocery store for a completely different article. Before that it was IGA, and somewhere along the lines (I believe) J&P Food Stores. Which is another article I hope to some day write.
I liked G&H a great deal.
I clearly remember one time, my mom saying we were going grocery shopping, and I became quite eager, until she noted we were going to Co-op.
Nothing against the Co-op, but for me, it wasn’t G&H. It felt weird not going to G&H. However, Co-op did mean arcades (rather indirectly, but….) so there was that saving grace.
One time, not so long ago, I was trying to think of why I hadn’t been to a nearby store for a long time.
As most thoughts that run through my head, I didn’t know what store it was, I felt oddly remiss of.
I could see the floor plan, and everything but simply could not remember what the store was. It finally hit me that it was the attached IDA store that I was mysteriously missing, and I became quite bummed I would never walk through either again.
G&H always seemed like the neatest place.
Blokes Bakery bread, a full-on-view butcher’s area, open aisles where you could see everything and easily talk to everyone you saw. It was a spacious store, but never felt ridiculously big like most grocery stores these days. The staff was always a prime example of small-town friendly, courteous service.
And let’s face it. The ‘mascot’. Who can forget whoever, or whatever it was supposed to be.