Byrd’s Supermarket Opens In Apex — December 1979
The opening of the new Publix supermarket in Apex earlier this month was big news. In December 1979, the opening of a Byrd’s Supermarket was the top story.
“Byrd’s Holds Grand Opening (Western Wake Herald, December 27, 1979): Byrd’s Supermarket celebrated its grant opening Wednesday morning with a crowd of 50 to 60 lined lined at the door when the store opened.
Apex Mayor James Austin and J.R. Hinson, Byrd’s store manager from Apex, officially cut the ribbon at 8 A.M. Attending the ribbon cutting where H.W. Byrd, vice president of the company and R.Q. Tatum, personal manager at Byrd’s.
Customers soon filled the store, taking advantage of the store’s reduced prices and free items offered for the grand opening. All the shopping cars were in service with the first 15 minutes of opening.
Byrd’s sold its fryers for a record low in Apex at 36 cents a pound an celery for 18 cents a stalk. The store also gave away such items as bread and hot dogs to its first 200 customers.
Located on Highway 55 and James Street, Byrd’s is the first of several stores planned on the 11-acre tract leased to C.R. Byrd from W.D. and Jane Ashworth of Fuquay-Varina.”
Byrd’s was located in the brand new shopping center at the corner of James St. and N.C. 55. And the reason you may have never heard of it is because, within a year or so of opening, this Byrd’s became a Food Town, which changed its name to Food Lion in 1983. It remained a Food Lion until the new Vineyard Station shopping center at Old Raleigh Rd. and Laura Duncan opened around early 1997 (with a new Food Lion) — and the old location closed up. The building is now New Horizons Fellowship Church.
Byrd’s main competition in Apex was the established Piggly Wiggly on NC 55, which is now Compare Foods and was Scott’s Galaxy Foods before that. That building opened as a “Progressive” grocery around 1964 (though Apex’s GIS system dates the building to 1955) and was taken over by Piggly Wiggly in about 1969.
Piggly Wiggly always had a full page ad in the Western Wake Herald:
Check out the full December 27, 1979 issue of the Western Wake Herald which highlighted the opening of Byrd’s on the front page:
