J&E Grocery, 139 Reynolds Street

J&E Grocery was your typical Mom and Pop variety store located in Rochester, NY that specialized in cheap meats and sundries. Turns out it closed in 2001 after 37 years in business likely forced to by increased competition and the proliferation of big-box stores like Walmart.

What I remember most about J&E were their low-budget commercials they ran on local TV featuring the same monotoned guy in a red (sometimes white) butchers apron running down the features of the week. “…and the weekly specials are…”. These specials included things like neck bones, ham hocks and chitlins as well as canned creamed corn. The ending was always the same and in my mind I can’t even say the store name without including the street address. “So come on down to J&E Grocery, 139 Reynolds Street”.

This style of advertising for J&E also extended to other local businesses in that area too. Remember The Great House of Guitars? How about Jim “The Hammer” Shapiro and his unforgettable slogan about suing drunks? Wegmans had a bunch at the time too but I can’t find any of their older ads on YouTube.

There’s just something about these gritty and unpolished ads that speak to me. J&E Grocery and their TV commercials are burned into to the deepest crevices of my brain. I can’t shake them out and I wouldn’t want to. This is the type of marketing you can’t pay for. The store hasn’t been open in 10 years but here I am remembering everything about them 15-20 years later. That’s stickiness!

Google street view shows another grocery store there now called “Price Chopper III”, not to be confused with the Price Chopper that you and I are used to here in Ontario today.

It’s these fun yet obscure facts or memories that have been magically appearing in my mind recently. Am I that close to a mid-life crisis?! All I know is, I’ve never stepped into this little grocery store in Rochester, NY but somehow it’s engrained in my mind. I doubt I’ll ever forget it.