In the attached photo, you can see the front door of "Sam Sham's Grocery Store" at 121 South Alcaniz Street. This was the former Warfield's Grocery belonging to Willard R Warfield. Sam's store was the classic "grocery" of its time, but would soon give way to the more modern shopping concepts. Sam’s brother, Sidney, would open his own grocery several blocks away at 201 E. Wright Street at the southeast corner of Tarragona and Wright. Sidney's was much larger than Sam’s and employed twice as many clerks, cashiers, and meat cutters, but rarely did his business ever compete with his brother’s. Sam opened his grocery store a few years before his brother and operated his under a totally different system.
At Sam’s store the customers walked in and handed the clerk a hand written list of what they needed. Sometimes they’d send one of their children around with the list and Sam’s delivery boy would deliver the goods with their bill placed on the customer’s account. In the meantime, one of his clerks would gather the loose stock such as sugar, coffee, dried fruits, corn meal, and flour and placing each one of them separately in a brown bag, weighing them, and tying them up with string. Canned goods were piled high on the shelves behind the counter within easy reach of the clerk. Sam also kept chicken and gophers in cages out back and with their customers in tow they’d go behind the store and let them pick out the one they wanted. When the customer finally picked one of the fryers, the clerk grabbed the chosen one out of the case and tied their legs together with a string. Thus bound, the clerk placed a paper bag over the chicken with its head sticking out of a hole cut in the top.
But when his brother Sydney opened his store on Wright Street he redesigned the entire floor plan, which created an entirely different shopping experience. In his store, the customers pushed a grocery cart down the aisle and selected their own items from the well-stocked shelves. This was one of the first so called “self-serve” grocery stores ever built in Pensacola. While the two brothers continued to serve the same community, Sam and his second wife Sylvia always lived next door to their store in a fine brick house next door to the store. Sam met his fate at the age of 62-years old on May 30, 1962 and was buried in the Jewish Cemetery off Cervantes Street in Brownsville.
Samuel N. Sham's Grocery & Market, 121 South Alcaniz Street
Sidney Sham's AD, Pensacola News Journal 1930
You can still see the old "Warfield's Grocery" Sign of 1912
Willard R. Warfield's 1912 Grocery Ad