A Brief Tour of Dutch Country Market and Valley Housewares

This post documents a unique non-chain store in the village of Fort Plain, New York.

This is Dutch Country Market, an Amish-run grocery store paired with Valley Housewares, a home goods store all-in-one.

Front of the Dutch Country Market portion, which houses the register area and some very boring Kmart Technibilt carts.

Store has a full-service deli department. Refrigerated foods sit along the left-hand wall (some coolers visible in this image).

Bulk quantities of bottled water (40 ct) and soft drinks (36 ct). Such quantities are uncommon outside warehouse clubs.

A smaller area to the right houses canned and boxed foods.

In the Valley Housewares portion of the building, they use Ames carts, manufactured by United Steel & Wire in 2000. Is it not absurd to see a Rehrig lower rack on one of them?

Quilts line the back of the store.

Saranac Lake Revisited, and other Adirondack exploits

 

This post not only covers the changeover of the Saranac Lake Tops to Grand Union (for the third time) but other retail on today's trip through the Adirondacks. Buckle up everyone!

SARANAC LAKE REVISITED

This store is Grand Union... for the third time. Apart from the badly cut horizontal signage, nothing about this exterior has changed. An exterior upgrade was proposed when Tops remodeled this store in 2019, but never came to fruition.

Not much to look at, other than the fact that the Tops decor bears the Grand Union name like every other conversion.

The refurbished United Steel & Wire carts from the renovation stayed the course. They gave the top of the handle a square insert while keeping the black rounded bottom insert.

TWO BANNERS, ONE ROOF

Location: Tupper Lake, New York

Family Dollar moved to this former Rite Aid at 4 Pleasant Avenue in December 2021, and being co-branded with Dollar Tree. FD was formerly located at 76 Demars Boulevard

Don't you hate it when people leave their carts wherever? By the way, this is one of their new Cart Source units. The ordering logic on these is M38-ATP-BLK-DF.

Inside, the entire store has been gutted and has concrete flooring. The Dollar Tree selection is in the front of the store.

BORNE ON LONG LAKE

This general store sits on the shore of Long Lake on NY Route 30.

Cart Tax: You would be surprised to know these are not Walmart carts. These are Unarco PC-20s from 2002, with nickel-chrome frames. With the way this store is laid out in the following pictures, you will know these carts are too big for this store. Oh, and these carts have Good L. Corp badges on the front caster plates, indicating Northern Borne purchased these carts from them.

The left-most aisle of the right-hand section of the store, which houses water, juice, box cereals, peanut butter, and canned goods.

Excusing the blurriness, that is part of the produce cooler, which sits along the right-most wall of the store.

 Middle aisle in this section of the store, which houses sauces, boxed pasta, and cookies.

Cold beverages in the middle section of the left-hand section of the store.

Looking from back to front, turning left from the previous photo. The registers are in this section.

And rather than give a regular conclusion to this post, have an image taken from a scenic overlook outside of Indian Lake: