Horst Happenings....: Yearning For Some Retro Prices

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Yearning For Some Retro Prices

I got up early this morning because I needed to go grocery shopping at HEB. I left the house around 6:30 AM and spent about 2 hours in the store. When I left I had about $280 less than when I went in and HEB had it. In all fairness I spent about $80 on something totally unrelated to groceries. That was a pair of wireless headphones for the TV.

I have noticed that grocery prices have been following the gasoline prices into the stratosphere lately. There are some shoestring potatoes that Chris likes. They have jumped from $1.59 a few weeks ago to $1.79 this morning. A pound of store brand butter has gone from $1.59 to $2.09. I could go on and on but I am sure you are intimately acquainted with this same experience. So I decide to hunt through the archives. (Really several boxes of junk, errrrrr, important family heirlooms.) I found just what I was looking for, a few old ads and some old menus.

I have scanned one of the ads and placed the scans below. I had to make 2 passes to get the ad since it was on the large side. It is from Dominick's Finer Foods in Chicago. The date is January 6, 1972.

I apologize for the funky way the ad looks. I was unable to get them stitched together. And on some computers the results may get really strange. After all, this was not supposed to be an exercise in computer skills or expertise with Photoshop. The purpose was to reminisce.

But now back to the prices, that was the whole reason for this anyway. Look at those prices. It's interesting how some prices are nearly 10x as high now and other things are only 2x or 3x higher. Don't you wish you could still get bread and eggs for this price? How about those Banquet TV dinners? It's in small print above the coupons but a 25 lb. bag of Dog Chow is $3.04. I'm embarrassed to say how much I have to pay for the same amount of Iam's Dog Food.While looking for the old ads I found a couple of menu's for places here in town. A churches fried Chicken and Schmaltz's Sandwich Shop, a local eatery similar to Schlotzsky's.

I'm not sure of the year but both are probably early to mid 1970's. I remember when this particular Church's opened on 17th & Waco Drive in the late 60's and they had big signs up around the building advertising the 1 piece chicken and a roll for 49 cents. Looks like the restaurants today make a killing on their soft drinks compared to the days when these menus were printed. Wouldn't it be nice get things for this price again?