Sendik's – Grocery Store
Built in 1909, this building is the oldest existing building in the North Downer Avenue commercial district. According to Sal Sendik, the current co-owner of Sendik’s on Downer and the first son of the founder Tony Sendik, this store has been operating here since 1933. Sendik’s often comes up in oral histories as a place that adds uniqueness to Downer Avenue.
How Sendik's began on Downer
Sendik’s himself started as a peddler with a basket of fruits and opened his first store on Oakland and Capitol in 1928. Subsequently, four brothers joined the business during the Depression, making one store insufficient. A new store opened on N. Downer Ave. Sal Sendik states that they first leased this space from Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (A&P). It was finally purchased from the Uihlein family in 1962.
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What people think of Sendik's
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Architectural Change – Legacy of its Development
According to Sal Sendik, when Tony Sendik started the store with two of his brothers, he sold just fresh produce. They sold the same items on Oakland and Capitol.
When Sendik started his business he shared the premises with some other stores located under the same roof. The surrounding stores included a fish market, a liquor store, a meat market, the Tuxedo bar, Lake Park Pharmacy, a laundry, a dry cleaner, and a radio store. He gradually acquired the other stores. He built a one-story greenhouse on the south side and added a warehouse in the rear till Sendik's became what it is today. |
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Interior
The current store of Sendik's has four distinct sections: fresh produce; meat, bakery and dairy; fish, liquor and deli; and floral. Previously occupied by a pharmacy, the current meat, bakery and dairy section is the most well crafted with an exposed timber structure. The interior of the fresh produce and fish, liquor and deli sections is rather functional. The flower section is the newest addition with a wooden ceiling, skylights and the terra-cotta-tiled floor. The difference of the decorations implies the hierarchy of the early individual retail stores. According to James Mayo, modern grocery stores have made profits "by making the shopper a worker." People walk around the store and take items they need on their own instead of asking shopkeepers to take them out of the shelves, which used to be the style of retail shops. Sendik's partially retains the clerk-served-style sections: the meat, bakery, fish and deli sections. Although it looks like a modern grocery store where people can buy most daily items on one site, the current spatial configuration of Sendik's is a legacy of its own history. |
*All interior photos were taken by Yuko Nakamura.
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Exterior
Based on Richard Longstreth’s classification of American commercial architecture, the building itself can be classified as a “two-part commercial block.” This is a typology of American commercial architecture that was popular around 1800 through 1950. As Mayo explains, a majority of grocery stores in the United States were “either a cooperate chain or an affiliated independent” by the 1930s, when Sendik’s started on Downer. Probably because Sendik’s has competed with chain grocery stores since its beginning, their exterior still has multiple classic features of early grocery stores to make a distinction. Awnings have provided shades since the days when grocers set merchandise outside on the sidewalks in order to entice shoppers. Sendik’s still has awnings throughout its storefront and even remodeled them later than 1982, even though there are no displays along the sidewalks. In addition, their promotional posters are still hand-written/drawn while contemporary chain grocery stores tend to use printed materials. These decisions suggest that the storeowner wishes to present Sendik's more as an small, independent grocery store than as a supermarket. |
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- City of Milwaukee Historic Preservation Commission, "Final Historic Designation Study Report: North Downer Avenue Commercial District" (Milwaukee: Historic Preservation Commission, 2001), 8.
- Margaret Howland, interview by Daniel Cho and Yuko Nakamura, Milwaukee, June 19, 2013.
- Richard Longstreth, "Compositional Types in American Commercial Architecture," Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture 2 (1986): 12–23.
- James M. Mayo, The American Grocery Store: The Business Evolution of An Architectural Space (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1993), 128–130, 240–245.
- Sal Sendik, interview by Daniel Cho and Yuko Nakamura, Milwaukee, June 20, 2013.
- Cynthia Sommer, "Sendik’s – It is All in the Name," accessed July 3, 2013.
More Place-Based Stories
Go back to the map of the places. Or choose one from the list below.
Downer Hardware | Mulkern's Garage | Coffee Trader | Downer Theatre | Popcorn Wagon | St. Mark's | Downer Garage
Downer Hardware | Mulkern's Garage | Coffee Trader | Downer Theatre | Popcorn Wagon | St. Mark's | Downer Garage