One of the more unique Red Owl Grocery store locations could be found at the then new Southdale Shopping Center. Opening in 1956, it is the first fully enclosed climate controlled mall in the world.
Southdale developers envisioned a retail mix of businesses at the mall with the addition of a grocery store. That surprised some who wondered whether shoppers really would buy a cart full of groceries when they come to a mall for things like boots, down comforters or a new pair of eyeglasses.
Southdale opened with a 30,000-square-foot Red Owl, which was then the largest grocery in the Upper Midwest. By 1950s standards, this store was huge. Keep in mind that this was 1956, years before giant warehouse-style grocers.
Note the Red Owl sign perched over the receiving tunnel that served the entire mall. The store itself is located just North of the tunnel and stretched into the main structure on the first level.
A closer look...
To get a sense of the then new concept, here are views of the unfinished court...
And another when newly finished...
This is Red Owl's inside entrance, doors just out of view to the left. The street entrance is visible just beyond the mall doors.
Lets go shopping...
A rather ambitious boxed cereal display even by todays standard...
A time when light bulbs could be individually selected like tender fruit...
In living color...
Now to the car...
Mrs. Shopper, just as Southdale architect Victor Gruen envisioned in the 1950s, could spend a cold January morning in the indoor comfort of a shopping center that duplicated the services of traditional downtown shopping.
Red Owl moved out of the mall in 1973, just across the street on York Avenue. The stand alone grocery store would later be torn down and replaced by Cub Foods.