Arbor Drugs #118/CVS #8118, Wyandotte, Michigan

October 17, 2021

This post will look at retail in Wyandotte, Wayne County, MI.

A&P / Lucky Strike Market / Pinch Penny Market / Arbor Drugs #118 / CVS #8118

131 Elm Street, Wyandotte, MI

Driving distance and time from downtown Detroit: 11.6 miles, approx. 27 minutes

After covering CVS store #8029, it seemed natural that this blog would get around to doing a post on Wyandotte's other active CVS store, and very much like #8029, this location also has a grocery store past.

The 131 Elm Street A&P store in the 1960s, following its last exterior remodel. The former Wyandotte Post Office building (background) would soon be demolished for additional parking for 131 Elm's tenants. (credit: All Things Wyandotte)

Located on a side street within downtown Wyandotte, the building that houses CVS #8118 was first built in 1938 to house an A&P grocery store, and like most A&P stores of the period, was built in the chain's then-typical stepped-facade design (seen above). Despite competition from Kroger and Big Bear (this Big Bear chain was unrelated to same-named chains elsewhere in the country)/Wrigley's stores within a radius of a few short blocks, A&P hung on the longest, but even that was not enough to save the store from eventual closure, which came in 1975.

Lucky Strike Market was the first of two local grocery store tenants to succeed A&P at 131 Elm. (credit: Isaac Kremer)

After alterations were made to the exterior (including darkening the brick and placing siding and a peaked facade over the original stepped facade), the building would be retenanted a short while later as Lucky Strike Market, which lasted in this location through the mid-1980s before being succeeded by Pinch Penny Market, which closed by early 1991. Arbor Drugs quickly took over the building, giving it yet another exterior remodel (including the removal of the siding and peaked facade and moving the entrance from the Elm Street-facing side to the 2nd Street-facing side), and on October 15, 1991, reopened the building as store #118.

Arbor Drugs #118 is visible on the right in this photo of Elm Street taken in the aftermath of one of a series of major snowstorms that hit southeast Michigan in early 1999. By this time, the store was about to become CVS #8118. (credit: All Things Wyandotte)

To date, Arbor's exterior alterations have been the last such remodels performed on the exterior of this building, even as the chain was bought out by CVS. Shown above is the current entrance, at the northwest corner of the building.

After walking into the first set of front doors, making a 90-degree right turn, and walking through the second set of doors, here's what we see. As usual, health & beauty is situated in the corner immediately next to the entrance.

Getting Groundhog Day vibes from this photo? This is almost exactly the same view as the above photo, but as it appears now. It should be noted that interior photos in this post were taken in May 2018 and in October 2021, and during that three-year time gap, CVS did a remodel sweep on most of the area's stores, replacing the decor in the above photo with their current one, which is what you see in this photo.