Nashville Kroger Celebrates 50 Years At Current Location

The Nashville Kroger grocery store first opened its doors on April 16, 1968, 50 years ago Monday.

The photos came to us courtesy of Jon Hunter, who wrote,

“These were taken a couple years before I was born. Sorry, I do not know who took them and other that what is written on the front, there is no additional information on the back of either one. I purchased some old photos of buildings in Nashville at an auction a couple years back and these were in the lot. In addition to liking history and old pictures, the main reason these were of interest is that my parent’s first home is in the background of the inside store picture and my grandparent’s last home is in the lefthand background of the outside picture of the store. Not wanting to live next door, my parents moved from that house in 1966 and later sold it to an employee of the store. The “new” Kroger store was intended to be much larger. It was to include all properties to the east in addition to the land it occupies today. Kroger company was to purchase my parent’s home (the current site of that large red and tan building that J&R recently built), J & R store on the corner (a house was there at that time), the grey building south of J &R (former home of John Dreas who started the appliance business) and the home of Charlie Kaufman on the Northwest corner of Buhrman and Adams.”

Nashville Kroger will be holding a cookout celebration in front of the store in honor of the 50th anniversary on Saturday, April 21, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. They will be grilling out and there will be refreshments served.