I remember the High Low that was in the 2600 block of N. Harlem Avenue very well. My grandfather used to take my mother and grandmother shopping there every week. I remember that on the inside, the perimeter walls of the store had big painted signs advertising the different brands of food they sold, and I was also fascinated with the electric eye they had on the front door. It was the first one I ever saw. While my mother and grandmother were in High Low, my grandfather would go across the street to Caputo's, which at that time was no more than a garage with hand painted signs on it, and tell Caputo how to run his business. My grandfather had retired after owning a chain of small groceries, fruit stores, and restaurants, and felt he knew it all. In reference to your dad slicing meat, another thing I distinctly remember about High Low were the automatic slicing machines. Evidently they sold so much sliced cheese, they would have automatic slicing machines set up constantly slicing American cheese. In addition to the store on Harlem which we frequented, I believe there was at least one more at Laramie and Jackson on the West Side.
There was one in South Shore at 79th & Jeffrey. When you walked in the door, the whole area in front of the window had shelves of 10 cent items. Everything from cheese curls to bubble bath.
I believe there was a High Low on Western Ave near 95th Street. I was very young but remember being fascinated with the yellowish "electric eye" that would open and close the doors automatically. Much to my mother's chagrin, I would jump in and out of the line of vision on the "electric eye", opening and closing the door. She usually had to come back out of the store and get me. Being close to the floor at that time I do remember the b/w ties and kind of a b/w theme to the outside, too.
There was a Hi-Lo somewhere near 63rd Street just on the south edge of Hyde Park. Their specialty was offering a lot of items that cost ten cents. Two products I have always remembered---one was a can of mashed sweet potatoes and the other was Apple Bay Applesauce which was very faintly pink and had the most apple-y flavor of any canned applesauce I have ever tasted. My husband was a student---we had little money---and I used those two ten-cent items a lot.
The last High Low store my father was a store manager of was in Elmhurst. He moved our entire family to Elmhurst and that is where all 9 children grew up. My mother just past away last Easter Sunday in the same house. Dads now in the "High Low" in the sky. Miss you both...
I remember a HIGH LOW Store at Between 67th and 68th and Pulaski.
They carried a brand of Ice Cream called Ronnies it was real creamy and all natural. I also remember the High Low Flyer Red Wagon That I had for over 15 years.I delivered Chicago Sun Times and Tribune Papers in it until one of the wheels froze and split in half.
Back in the 40's I worked at the High Low at 2257 W. 95th St. (95th and Oakley). The ice cream brand was Roney's Real Rich Ice cream and the High Low chain at the time was owned by the Roney family. I remember High Low bread selling for 5 cents a loaf and potatoes that we received in 100 lb. burlap bags selling for 5 cents a pound. We'd buy tub butter at the deli counter. The first frozen foods I ever saw were Booth's and they were in a freezer adjacent to the ice cream freezer.
The 95th street store was replaced by the one on the East side of Western, north of 95th, sometime after I left Chicago.
StrayKitten Wrote:
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> There was one in South Shore at 79th & Jeffrey.
> When you walked in the door, the whole area in
> front of the window had shelves of 10 cent items.
> Everything from cheese curls to bubble bath.
Sometimes, my grandparents took my brother and I there when they did their Saturday grocery shopping. We would always go to White Castle afterwards.
One on Devon, West of California in Rogers park. I don't have many memories of grocery shopping as a child (we frequented A&P more often that High Low, but I remember my mom letting me pick flavors from the various loose cans (pre pull-tabs) of no-name pop in the displays just inside the entrance.
davey7 Wrote:
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> My coworker grew up in Roseland and remembers a
> store on 111th between King Drive and Cottage.
409 E. 11th Street - I worked there when I was in high school.
geffertz Wrote:
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> davey7 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > My coworker grew up in Roseland and remembers a
> > store on 111th between King Drive and Cottage.
>
> 409 E. 11th Street - I worked there when I was in
> high school.
I grew up in Fernwood right next door to Roseland. I and some friends would walk up 103rd street and cruise up and down Michigan Ave on the weekends. There was another Hi-Low on 103rd St on the north side of 103rd just east of the railroad tracks at Eggleston. That would make it one of the university streets. Either Princeton, Yale or Harvard. Don't remember the order. It's still there and is still painted the dark grey color but is a church now. And adding a little bit more to the post above (quoted below):
"Back in the 40's I worked at the High Low at 2257 W. 95th St. (95th and Oakley). The ice cream brand was Roney's Real Rich Ice cream and the High Low chain at the time was owned by the Roney family."
I lived at 102nd and Union and Roney's Real Rich Ice cream was located at the corner of 103rd and Lowe across the street from the Heinz Drug Store. On the hot summer days we would go to the second floor office of Roney's and get a free ice cream. They kept a freezer case there with items that didn't come out just right (like broken cones, etc.) and they would give each of us one free. They were real nice people and liked kids. Roseland/Fernwood was a really nice place to grow up in the 50's and 60's.