You are now entering the Wallingford QFC. Look straight ahead and you’ll see cashiers scanning barcodes and saying, ”thank you come again!” or “have a nice day!” You’ll also see square shaped metal shopping carts being driven by the shoppers. You’ll smell fresh flowers from the floral shop, fried chicken from the deli, and fresh bread from the bakery. Wallingford comes here to buy their groceries and other necessities like cough syrup.
The Wallingford QFC is well known for what it isn’t anymore. It used to be Food Giant before it became QFC. Food Giant was a very popular place. There weren’t many stores in Wallingford during that time, so everybody went to Food Giant for whatever they needed. It was considered a place where the community came together to shop. The neighborhood was so small that everyone knew each other.
The market had big blue and white neon letters on the roof that spelled “Food Giant”. When it was sold to QFC, the community didn’t want to lose the landmark sign, so they worked out a compromise.
Geoffrey Braden, a Wallingford community member, told us that they took some letters from the Food Giant sign and installed letters that spelled “Wallingford”, which is what it says today.
Quote: Geoffrey Braden talking about how the community felt/reacted to QFC buying the store.
Community members also had opinions about what should happen to the store’s loyal employees. Geoffrey Braden was one that wrote a letter.
Quote: about his letter.
This corner didn’t always have a grocery store on it. Longtime Wallingford resident Edna _____ used to play there as a kid.
Quote: Edna talking about playing game that broke windows.
We have some pictures of the corner. Some of them aren’t dated, but we can see the store signs. The oldest looking picture has a small “Wald’s Market and Delicatessen” sign and sits right on the street. The building looks to be about one-eighth of the size of the current QFC. A photo advertising auto licenses for sale in 1955 features a Cursive Foodland sign on top of the building outlined in Neon. The next photo we have shows the Food Giant set back from the street like the QFC is now, with it’s infamous big neon letters.
Are you hungry? If you are, it would be a great idea to grab something before you leave. There are more places you’ll need to visit after this. So be wise and buy some food because you’ll soon get hungry and won’t have much energy to walk anymore!