There was also a Thompsons on Irving Park Road, just west of Harlem Avenue, on the north side of the street. Went there for years for milk and ice cream. It closed before their flagship store in Park Ridge was torn down for yet another Walgreens. Our local store was Sally's Certified, on the corner of New England and Addison, which eventually became R & B Finer Foods. The brothers, Rocco and Benny, gave up the ghost about five or six years ago. The store opened for a short while as small local store but only lasted a few months. Avenue Foods, on Belmont, opened as the "new" Jewel back in the 1960's, as the old Jewel was on the north side of Belmont between Rutherford and Normandy before that. Jewel built the new store to compete with the "new" National that was on the south side of Belmont between Natoma and Normandy, which eventually became a banquet hall, now torn down for condos. I remember stopping at the Kroger on Central near Fullerton that is now Tony's, and someone mentioned the Mayflower Stores that were at Addison & Central and on Elston. There was another on Harlem Avenue, in the former shopping center where the Burlington Coat Factory is now located. There was a large membership discount store that opened up there, called CMA or Consumer Marts of America, and the north side of the store was a Mayflower. CMA eventually closed down (hits of organized crime connections) and was replaced by a Community Discount Store, and the Mayflower became Kohl's Mayflower, as did the one at Addison and Central. The whole CMA/Mayflower complex was torn down and replaced with the current shopping center in the 1970's, while Dominick's took over the Kohl's at Addison & Central. In my grandmother's neighborhood, the Cermak Produce at Kostner and Armitage was originally opened as a National Tea Store, which was previously located further east on the south side of Armitage around Tripp Ave. It later became a Butera, then eventually a Cermak Produce.
Arista mentioned she lived on Harding, and there used to be one of the most interesting stores in the city on the 1500 block of North Harding. There was a Russian bookstore, called M. Dolgich Bookstore, and as I was studying Russian in college, it was a wonderful place to drop into. He had all kinds of books as well as records, foods, and other Russian stuff. It was a trip into another world.