Chevy Chase Supermarket opened its doors in 1958 on Connecticut Avenue, where Images Hair Design and Lemon Twist are now located. Founder Bernard Freedman was determined to create a store that would place the ultimate emphasis on service, treating customers like friends and becoming an integral part of the neighborhood.
Walter Kirsch joined the store in September 1963. Although Walter and Bernard were only related by marriage (one of Bernard's sons was married to Walter's sister), they developed a very close relationship and Bernard treated Walter like a son.
On February 12, 1964, Chevy Chase Supermarket moved across the parking lot to its current location. The store was about 15,000 square feet at that point. In 1970, the store expanded to 25,000 square feet. The construction work was all completed at night so that customers wouldn't be inconvenienced. (Interesting trivia note: The original entrance, before expansion, faced Connecticut Avenue rather than Manor Road. This explains the unusual set-up of Chevy Chase Supermarket. Our aisles run horizontally across the store rather than vertically from the front, because we didn't want to close the store to move all the aisles.)
When Bernard Freedman died in 1985, Walter Kirsch became president of the store. Walter's sons both worked part-time at the store while they were growing up, and they later joined him at the store full-time, Kevin in 1990 and Jason in 1992. Kevin and Jason worked everyday with their father, until he died on September 4, 2009.
Today we're proud to still be a family-owned and family-operated store. Kevin and Jason's children, Sabrina, Griffin, Sam, Alex, Ryan and Whitney are now the fourth generation to be involved in the store. Who knows? Maybe in a few years you may see some of them working part-time at the store after school or during the summer!
nice story, wish the pictures were bigger, I use to work markets that had that type of sliding glass windows in them, I liked that, didn't have to go all the way out to the meat case to see what some one wanted